WARNING: I have deleted the original version of this post and replaced it with something completely different. Sorry.
Shall I never be rid of this stupid topic? I'm talking, of course, about the reallocation of veterans funds from the discretionary budget to the mandatory budget. Here's where I am now.
The Congressional Budget Office examined the original PACT Act on February 18 and found no reallocation. It was passed by the House on March 3 and sent it to the Senate. On June 6, in a footnote, CBO makes clear that its estimate of the bill when it passed on March 3 was the same as its original February 18 estimate. In other words, there was no reallocation in the House version.
In its June 6 analysis CBO examined the latest version of the bill while it was sitting in the Senate. In this version, they estimated that the bill would reallocate $400 billion in existing spending from discretionary to mandatory:
This estimate reflects changes in the version of the bill as posted on the website of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
This is clear: The reallocation happened in the Senate. In a show of immense diligence and curiosity, I compared the March 3 House bill to the June 6 Senate bill. Here are the relevant sections:
| House Bill Passed on March 3 | Senate Bill as of June 6 |
|---|---|
| (b) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There is authorized to be appropriated to the Fund for fiscal year 2023 and each subsequent fiscal year such sums as are necessary to increase funding, over the fiscal year 2021 level for the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs, for any expenses incident to the delivery of veterans’ health care and benefits associated with exposure to environmental hazards in service, including administrative expenses, such as claims processing and appeals, and for medical research related to hazardous exposures. | (c) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There is authorized to be appropriated to the Fund for fiscal year 2023 and each subsequent fiscal year such sums as are necessary to increase funding, over the fiscal year 2021 level, for investment in— (1) the delivery of veterans’ health care associated with exposure to environmental hazards in the active military, naval, air, or space service in programs administered by the Under Secretary for Health; (2) any expenses incident to the delivery of veterans’ health care and benefits associated with exposure to environmental hazards in the active military, naval, air, or space service, including administrative expenses, such as information technology and claims processing and appeals, and excluding leases as authorized or approved under section 8104 of this title; and (3) medical and other research relating to exposure to environmental hazards. |
In the House bill, funding is for (a) incidental expenses such as claims processing and (b) medical research. That's new spending and would be classified as mandatory. The Senate bill includes those two but adds funding for "delivery of veterans health care." That's existing spending, and it would be redefined as mandatory. That's apparently where the $400 billion comes from.
At least, that's what CBO thinks, and I trust their legislative analysis a whole lot more than I trust mine.
So after changing my mind once again, I'm back where I started: This reallocation happened in the Senate, and that means the culprits are probably Sen. Jon Tester and Sen. Jerry Moran.
Back when "Mac" Mathias was a Maryland senator & the internet hadn't been invented, it was always possible to find someone on his staff to quickly & cogently explain the riders, poison pills - all the ins & outs of the legislative process of each bill, to explain how he voted & why.
Now we seem to have a worse version of congressional sausage-making, possibly because of excessive rule-changing & secret dealing.
Quite frankly, who cares. Making the funding for this mandatory means that little fuckers like Toomey won't be able to zero it out next year because it costs too much. Tester said as much on the News Hour tonight. He wants to make sure that veterans who qualify for this benefit damn well get it. Toomey does not.
+1
Exactly.
No more holding the vets' health hostage for their pet wars.
Yes, indeed.... who cares.
What's this "culprit" nonsense? You're taking at face value the Republican claims that there's something improper about this budgeting arrangement, when it's plain that even they don't believe it.
This seems exactly like the kind of thing you'd reasonably expect to be mandatory spending. This is so obvious and uncontroversial that even the senate GOP caucus didn't object to it.
Where did you get this idea that taking lies at face value is a worthwhile way to show off?
Agreed. Especially since I don’t see why Kevin’s giving the GOP a pass on the either illogic or (more likely) bad faith of forcing people who will need a lifetime of care to lobby Congress every year.
Even the liberal Kevin Drum knows only Demokkkrats have agency.
The GQP is like a force of nature, something that, at root, just does.
Heh. Kevin is liberal like I'm a liberal. Which is to say, an Eisenhower Republican.
Aren't we all??!?
I was playing off the construction "even the liberal ( ( ( New York Times ) ) )".
Neither Oranqe Qounty Qat Lover Qevin Drum nor A.Q. Sulzberqer is in any way, shape, or form a liberal.
Wow, auto-complete a real b!tch isn't it?
And in every version of the bill, including the version that passed, Republicans were quite willing to screw the veterans whom they claim to love if the Republicans’ behinds were not sufficiently kissed. And many of those military and law enforcement families will still vote gop. And continue to depend on Dems to be treated like humans.
Stewart Oafkeeper always thought he was different from Humayun Khan, in the eyes of the GQP...
I appreciate Kevin's devotion and attention to this particular issue. As for me, I'm staying away from all the yelling and waiting for a proper analysis - which I expect Kevin will provide later on.
I still think Republicans don't care about this, except that it's an excuse to nuke the bill in response to "Manchin's Betrayal".
Politicians on both sides are fairly good at finding excuses to cover their asses with. But what remains consistent on both sides is, when you betray an agreement, the other side retaliates, even if the retaliation is shitty - and this is doubly so if the other side can find an excuse to blame it on other than retaliation.
It was a floor wax!
It was a dessert topping!
…
Listerine?
Bass-O-Matic.
Bag o' Glass.
I think Kevin’s wrong. It wasn’t the senate. It was really Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the gun.
😊👍
Dear Zeus: when I'm retired, please help me to find a normal hobby like fly fishing, or visiting Civil War battlefields.
Who 'the culprit' is seems to be a massive distraction from the main point - that the bulk of the GOP voted for even the '$400B text' already (84-14) and then reversed course only in a fit of petulant spite.
As with who leaked the Supremes Roe draft opinion, we will likely never really know.
About which: after treating the February leak of the opinion as the gravest crime against Supremes comity, tradition, & independence, Shakes Roberts has been awfully quiet about the thorough investigation he launched into finding the culprit.
I think the fact that the investigation has been informally slow walked or even just discontinued is a big clue that if the confessor of a certain conservative Republican justice who wrote the opinion was free to speak, we’d know exactly who leaked the opinion.
The Kansas abortion amendment result -- a rare win for the Democrat Party -- is proof that Roberts was right to want to chisel at choice while keeping Roe, so maybe he will rev the investigation back up. Out of spite.
I think it suffices to say that Republicans ratfucked this issue, and worrying about which specific Republicans did the actual ratfucking is irrelevant. Just blame them all because they're all complicit in it even if some individuals' hands are "clean" and let veterans and those that love them decide whether they want more ratfucking in the future when they go to the polls in November.
To be pedantic about it....
"in the active military, naval, air, or space service in programs administered by the Under Secretary for Health"
Sounds like the active service has to be administered by the Under Secretary of Health, otherwise they don't get care.
Just trying my hand at being a Supreme Court Justice....
Didn't the June 6 version pass out of the Senate with overwhelming support? I think you're missing the point that whoever added the mandatory funding amendment, the Republicans supported it until they didn't. What change between June 6th and this week? I doubt it was Pat Toomey's persuasiveness, pretty sure it is a petty tantrum over the reconciliation bill with Manchin.
Unless I get this wrong this does not change that fact that 35 Republicans voted for the bill WITH the Tester provision the first time round and are now refusing to do the same. IN other words they are willing to screw the veterans for 2-year-old style temper tantrum (because Schumer/Manchin pulled a fast one on them).
Shhh, the GOP and is trying to change the subject. And Kevin is helping them.
Don't focus on the GOP's temper tantrum, instead let's blame the Democrats! For something! It doesn't even matter what the rationale is.
I am more concerned about Kevin simply deleting his second post. "Let's pretend I never make mistakes!" Make a retraction, add it to the original, even, but don't send incovenient storiess down the memory hole.
I hear the Secret Service has jobs availabke.
Very Brueniggian.