Following
months of rancorous debate about the national debt and federal deficit, Congress
agreed upon a deficit reduction measure –P.L. 112-25. Prior to the August
recess that could lead to cuts in discretionary and mandatory spending for the
Department of Veterans Affairs.
Additionally, Congress agreed to create the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (Super Committee) with the mission to reduce the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
The membership of committee was determined by several members of Congress.
The committee is required to issue recommendations by Nov. 23, 2011. The Committee has been given authority to consider all areas of interest as a part of deficit reduction including revenue increases, tax reforms, cuts in any and all discretionary spending accounts. The Committee’s recommendation would then be brought before the House and Senate for a simple up or down vote by Congress by December 23, 2011. This process would allow for no amendments to the recommendations.
In the event that
the Committee fails to agree to a bipartisan solution or the House or Senate
fails to approve the Committee’s recommendations, an automatic “trigger”
would occur that would immediately, cut an additional $1.2 trillion in federal
spending. The trigger would target two principle areas of the federal budget—national
security spending and all other domestic spending. For FY 2012 and FY 2013,
the VA would be included in the national security category along with the Department
of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and similar
agencies.
Interestingly, all VA programs are presumably excluded from automatic cuts.
PVA has already met
with the House and Senate Committees on Veterans’ Affairs to ensure that
VA programs are protected in the efforts to reduce the federal debt and deficit.
We will continue to monitor the work of the Joint Select Committee throughout
the next few months, and we will call upon the chapters to engage with their
elected representatives and senators to ensure that VA health care and benefits
programs are not diminished.
Mike Combs
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