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Republicans propose big jump in VA spending

Republicans on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee are proposing a $1.9 billion increase to the Obama administration’s veterans budget request for 2010, a jump twice as large as the one proposed by Democrats on the same panel.

About $550 million of the increase in the Republican plan would be in discretionary programs, which include health care and administrative costs and money to run the national veterans cemetery system. The remaining $1.36 billion would be in direct spending, which covers benefits, employment and training programs.

Democrats, who proposed an $800 million increase on March 13, would use $200 million of the total for operating expenses and $600 million for medical expenses.

Republican priorities include trying to improve the benefits claims process. A $2.5 million increase would be used to hire 30 more people to train claims processors; $170 million would speed deployment of a paperless claims adjudication system; and $5 million would fund a two-year pilot program in which veterans could pick the regional office they want to process their claim based on a performance report.

The single largest direct-spending increase, $1 billion, would go to reauthorize an expired small-business loan program for companies owned by veterans.

The $53.3 billion veterans health care budget proposed by Republicans is the same amount proposed by committee Democrats. Republicans ask that $605 million of the increase be designated for a three-year pilot program to improve health care for veterans in highly rural areas by using non-VA providers, and $100 million to modernize the VA’s prosthetic limb program, which the Republicans said in a report is important “to meet the needs of the younger and more active amputees with the latest technology.”

Additionally, $250 million would be designated to improve mental health programs and $25 million to support family caregivers.

The Democratic and Republican recommendations from the veterans committee were submitted to the House Budget Committee, which is responsible for drawing up the budget resolution that will be used to set tax and spending targets for federal programs.

The VA budget is likely to be considered too small by some veterans groups, even though the Obama administration’s proposed $4.9 billion increase would be the largest one-year increase ever in the veterans budget, both in dollars and percentage terms.

Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense said the main problem is that VA is vastly underestimating the needs of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who will be seeking medical care and benefits as operations in Iraq wind down.

Sullivan said VA estimates it will treat 419,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in 2010, but it already has treated 400,000 in 2009.

VA should be bracing for a tidal wave, he said. He estimated that the department will treat 520,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans by the end of fiscal 2009 on Sept. 30, and will treat 640,000 by the end of 2010.

“VA should be asked how they arrive at their consistently and wildly wrong estimates,” Sullivan said.