Press Releases

Today, Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (R-Tenn.), the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, released the following statement after the House passed H.R. 7608, which would allocate an unprecedented $12.5 billion dollars in emergency funding to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

“It is deeply concerning that House Democrats advanced a bill today that would allocate more than 12 billion dollars in taxpayer funds irresponsibly disguised as mission-critical emergency funding for VA,” said Ranking Member Roe. “Those dollars are spread across many of the same accounts that received billions of dollars in emergency funding in the CARES Act just a few months ago. Only a fraction of that emergency funding has been spent by VA so far and there is no reason to allocate billions more of it now other than to avoid discretionary spending debates. Congressional budget rules are in place to assure taxpayers that their hard earned money will be spent appropriately by their government. Using emergency money to make ends meet rather than making difficult decisions about how best to allocate finite resources is to break faith with those taxpayers and to abdicate our responsibility as lawmakers. Under President Trump, we have made historic investments in VA and veterans are unquestionably better served for it. Those investments should continue on a level playing field.”