Republicans Push Back on Democratic Claims of Veterans’ Health Care Cuts in GOP Debt Limit Bill

House Republicans narrowly passed a bill late last month that would temporarily suspend or raise the federal debt limit while significantly reducing caps on discretionary spending for the next 10 years. The legislation does not identify which discretionary programs would or would not see future spending cuts under the proposal.  

However, some Democrats have claimed that the bill would lead to deep cuts in several areas, including health benefits for military veterans.

“It makes a series of deeply devastating and unpopular cuts to things like veterans’ health benefits,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on May 2, adding that the Department of Veterans Affairs would be “gutted.”

But some GOP lawmakers have called such Democratic claims a “lie” and argued that congressional Republicans do not intend to scale back spending on services for veterans.

“Joe Biden and the Democrats are yet again shamelessly lying to the American people,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference, wrote in a May 1 tweet. “There are absolutely NO cuts to veterans benefits, or the VA in the Limit, Save, and Grow Act.”