McDonagh told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that a proposed amendment by Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey would put an “annual cap” on what the VA can spend to care for veterans suffering from burn exposure and closed the fund after 10 years, telling Tapper, “I can’t in good conscience do that because the result of that would be a distribution of vet care, which is something I just can’t sign off on.”
“This has been the No. 1 priority for President Biden,” McDonough said, touting the executive steps the Biden administration has already taken to remove the burden of proof for veterans seeking care for toxic exposures. “I guess what I would say is that these people have waited long enough. Let’s just do it and also let’s not be in favor of a proposal that puts artificial caps year after year and then functionally, at the end of those 10 years, makes that fund disappear. Let’s not buy into that, because ultimately the risk of that will be to compartmentalize care for veterans.”
On Saturday, McDonough visited people demonstrating at the Capitol in support of the legislation, delivering pizzas to the group, which promised to stay overnight. President Joe Biden, who remains in isolation at the White House after testing positive again for Covid-19 on Saturday, told the group via FaceTime call: “I’ll tell you what, as long as I have breath left in me, I’m going to fight, to do this – as long as I have breath in me.”
The Pennsylvania Republican accused Democrats of trying to “slide something completely unrelated that they know could never pass on its own,” while reiterating that he and his fellow Republicans are “not opposed” to the major provisions of the bill.
“[Democrats] know they’re going to unleash their allies in the media and maybe pseudo-celebrity to make up false accusations to try to get us to just swallow what shouldn’t be there,” Toomey said in an apparent reference to comedian John Stewart, a longtime advocate for victims of toxic burn exposure who was vocal after the procedural vote failed.
Toomey’s opposition to the bill centered on the bill’s accounting categorization of certain expenditures, which he said would “allow our Democratic colleagues to incur $400 billion in unrelated spending.” He said he wanted a vote on his amendment to change the categorization of spending before agreeing to let the bill come to a vote.
“We’re spending too much money to use — to hide behind the veterans bill, to be able to continue $400 billion in unrelated spending is wrong,” Toomey said. “And we shouldn’t allow it.”
When pressed on the text of the legislation, which indicated that the appropriation money should be spent on health care for veterans who were injured by exposure to toxic burns, Toomey rejected that interpretation of the bill.
“That’s why they do things like this,” said Toomey, who is not seeking re-election this year. “Because it gets very deep into the weeds and confuses people very quickly. It’s not really about spending on veterans. And about what category of state accounting they put veterans’ spending in.”
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