U.S. Senate rejects bill to aid veterans

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., stands in defeat after a divided Senate derailed Democratic legislation providing $21 billion for medical, education and job-training benefits for the nation's veterans, as the bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and whether to slap sanctions on Iran, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., stands in defeat after a divided Senate derailed Democratic legislation providing $21 billion for medical, education and job-training benefits for the nation's veterans, as the bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and whether to slap sanctions on Iran, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Friday, February 28, 2014

WASHINGTON - A divided U.S. Senate on Thursday derailed Democratic legislation that would have provided $21 billion for medical, education and job-training benefits for the nation’s veterans. The bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and fresh penalties against Iran.

The vote was 56-41, with supporters falling four votes short of the 60 they needed to prevail. Republican Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas voted against the bill, while the state’s Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor supported it.

Republicans used a procedural move to block the bill after Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chided GOP lawmakers about their priorities.

“I personally, I have to say this honestly, have a hard time understanding how anyone could vote for tax breaks for billionaires, for millionaires, for large corporations and then say we don’t have the resources to protect our veterans,” said Sanders, the measure’s chief author.

Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Dean Heller of Nevada were the only Republicans who voted to keep the legislation alive and the only lawmakers who crossed party lines on the vote.

Democrats noted that more than two dozen veterans groups supported the legislation.

Republicans said they favor helping veterans while also being prudent about federal spending.

“We’re not going to be intimidated on this,” said Sen.Jeff Sessions of Alabama, top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. “We’re going to do the right things for the veterans of America.”

Republicans criticized how most of Sanders’ bill was paid for - with unspent money from the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the winding down of American military involvement in Afghanistan. The GOP said those are not real savings because no one expected those dollars to be spent as those wars ended.

Republicans also objected to provisions making more veterans without service-connected injuries eligible for treatment at Veterans Affairs facilities. They said that would swamp an already overburdened system.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been engaged in a very public battle to reduce its backlog of claims awaiting an initial decision. But tackling that backlog has taken resources from its appeals system, contributing to a separate backlog there.

The department’s most recent annual performance report said the average time for a denied claim to work its way through the appeals process shot up to more than 900 days last year, double the department’s long-term target.

Veterans groups complained after Thursday’s vote about being caught in partisan crossfire.

“Veterans don’t have time for this nonsense, and veterans are tired of being used as political chew toys,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder and chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which supported the legislation.

Within moments of the vote, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee unleashed an email headlined, “Mitch McConnell Votes Against Kentucky Veterans.” McConnell is up for re-election this year.

Republicans said there would be no retribution from voters because the Democratic bill would have harmed veterans services by flooding them with too many people. They also said this year’s election campaigns will focus on other issues, such as President Barack Obama’s health-care law.

“We’re sort of fooling ourselves to believe that this drives the election-issue list,” said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, top Republican on the Veterans Affairs Committee.

Thursday’s showdown happened after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., refused to allow votes on a GOP amendment to slice the bill’s size and add penalties against Iran for its nuclear program.

Obama opposes new penalties while international negotiations with Iran proceed. Fifty-nine senators of both parties have sponsored a separate bill imposing the penalties if the talks fail, though Obama’s effort has weakened Democratic calls for a quick Senate vote.

The White House did not issue a public statement on whether it supported the veterans bill.

Sanders’ legislation addressed everything from making more veterans eligible for in-state college tuition to providing fertility or adoption services for some wounded troops left unable to conceive.

The Veterans Affairs Department would have been given more tools to eat into its backlog of 390,000 initial benefit claims awaiting action for more than 125 days. The bill also would have bolstered programs for veterans who suffered sexual abuse, and would have increased dental care and provided more alternative medicine, such as yoga for stress.

In a two-year test program, some overweight veterans living more than 15 minutes from a VA gym would have been given memberships at private health clubs.

Benefits for some spouses of deceased veterans would have improved, and aid to relatives caring for wounded veterans would have been expanded to include those who served before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The thick veterans bill also included a few lines to require the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to issue a report on “the extent to which Laotian military forces provided combat support to the Armed Forces of the United States between February 28, 1961, and May 15, 1975.”

The provision was aimed at helping Hmong veterans - who fought in the CIA-backed secret war in Laos in the 1960s and ’70s - in their quest to obtain the right to be buried in U.S. veterans cemeteries.

Legislation has been proposed to open national cemeteries to the estimated 6,200 to 8,200 Lao and Hmong who fought in the war and are U.S. citizens or legal residents. But it has languished.

The legislation became a priority after the military denied permission for Gen. Vang Pao, a Hmong leader who died in California in 2011, to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery because he and the soldiers who fought under him did not directly serve in the American military. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Calif.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, where about 5,000 Hmong live, has championed the cause in the Senate. Large numbers of Hmong also live in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed legislation easing U.S. citizenship requirements for Hmong immigrants who fought in the secret war.

Proponents of the legislation to grant former Hmong fighters the right to be buried in national cemeteries point out that Clinton in 2000 also signed legislation making Philippine World War II veterans who fought under the U.S. flag eligible for burial in VA cemeteries.

Information for this article was contributed by Alan Fram of The Associated Press; by Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times; and by Chris Adams of McClatchy Newspapers.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/28/2014