Democrats Highlight How Republican Funding Bill Fails to Meet the Needs of Veterans, Servicemembers, and Their Families

WASHINGTON — During today's House Appropriations Committee markup of the 2025 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies funding bill, House Democrats highlighted how the bill worsens the quality of life for veterans, servicemembers, and their families and falls short of adequately funding military construction projects.

This bill:

• Worsens the quality of life for servicemembers and their families and hurts military readiness by cutting military construction $718 million below last year.
• Further limits women's access to abortion, harming women veterans' health.
• Leaves military installations, servicemembers, and their families vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and worsening natural disasters by failing to include dedicated Climate Change and Resilience funding and walking back on investments in Natural Disaster Recovery construction.
• Undermines the ability to keep guns out of the hands of those prohibited under Federal law from purchasing or possessing firearms.
• Repeats the same extreme House Republican tactics attempted in fiscal year 2024 by including partisan changes to existing law, known as "riders," that hurt Americans and create chaos. Once again, Republicans are disenfranchising veterans rather than making VA a welcoming and inclusive place for all those who volunteer to serve our country. We did not make promises to certain servicemembers in exchange for their service and sacrifice; we made promises to everyone.

"Quality of life for our servicemembers and their families and caring for our veterans is paramount, yet distressingly, Republican cuts to military construction and resiliency not only neglects those basic needs it weakens America's long-term national security," Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-25) said. "Worse, while these MilCon-VA cuts are not as steep as other bills, they fall within a framework that abandons the Fiscal Responsibility Act agreement, which guided our funding decisions less than a year ago. Those deeper, more drastic cuts will make life harder for countless veterans and servicemembers who count on the same services and programs that all Americans need to stay afloat or get ahead. Finally, this bill frustratingly – once again – is riddled with culture war, poisonous riders that erode women's reproductive rights and endorse a foul brand of discrimination that is well beneath us by now. How my Republican colleagues would ever allow such partisan payoffs to a fringe minority undermine our shared goal of providing the best healthcare and benefits to our veterans, is extremely distressing. For all these reasons, I sadly, cannot support this bill."

Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz's full remarks as prepared for delivery are here.

"Few things can gain as much overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress as protecting and caring for America's veterans. We owe it to servicemembers and their families, who have all sacrificed so much for our nation, to provide the support they need upon returning to civilian life – be it medical care, job training, education, or housing assistance," Appropriations Committee Ranking Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) said. "House Republicans could have very easily found broad, bipartisan support for this bill, but they chose not to. Instead, they failed to adequately fund military construction projects and loaded the bill with extreme, harmful policies meant to divide rather than unite our country. Policies that hurt servicemembers' quality of life, damage our military readiness, restrict veterans' access to abortion, and leave our military installations around the world vulnerable to climate change-driven natural disasters. With this bill, the first of fiscal year 2025, House Republicans have shown the country that they plan to follow the same misguided, chaotic, and harmful process they pursued last year, to the detriment of servicemembers, veterans, workers, and families. They have shown that they plan to cut billions of dollars from programs that many veterans depend on – like the more than 1.2 million veterans on SNAP food assistance and the thousands that utilize housing vouchers. The time to abandon this path and govern responsibly is right now."

Congresswoman DeLauro's full remarks as prepared for delivery are here.

A summary of the bill can be found here. A fact sheet of the bill is here.

The text of the bill, before the adoption of amendments in full Committee, is here. The bill report, before the adoption of amendments in full Committee, is here. Information on Community Project Funding in the bill is here.

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