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Coburn keeps fighting unfunded vet bennies

The lawmaker holding up Senate passage of a veterans health care bill orchestrated a Monday vote that forced senators to choose between funding veterans programs or funding pet projects.

The pet projects — 96 unrequested military construction projects costing about $633 million — won over veterans funding on a 69-24 vote. But it probably isn’t the last effort by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to prevent the Senate from passing veterans benefits legislation that isn’t fully funded.

Coburn has talked about pushing a similar vote that would pay for unfunded veterans benefits but cutting U.S. payments to the United Nations.

On Monday’s vote, Coburn was attempting to send the $132.5 billion military construction and veterans appropriations bill, S 1407, back to the Senate Appropriations Committee for changes that would reduce the number of so-called “earmarks,” added by lawmakers, to provide sufficient funding for veterans caregiver benefits. Twenty-two Republicans and two Democrats voted with him on a motion that was opposed by Senate Democratic leaders.

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that prepared the bill, said Coburn seemed to be confusing his fights: The appropriations bill is separate from S 1963, the Veterans Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act, that Coburn has blocked for about a month.

Coburn has two basic criticisms of S 1963: that it does not pay for the estimated $3.7 billion in expenses over five years for new veterans benefits, like stipends and fringe benefits for caregivers of severely injured veterans, and that the new caregiver benefits apply only to veterans injured in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Coburn argues that without funding, S 1963 means nothing for veterans because there would be no money to pay for promised benefits. Supporters dispute his claim, saying there is nothing usual about having separate authorization and funding bills for new benefits, something commonly done with the annual defense budget and with veterans health and benefits changes.

“None of us disagree that taking care of those who have sacrificed for us has to become number two behind defense of this nation in terms of priorities,” he said. The problem with the appropriations bill, which includes $109 billion for veterans programs in 2010, is that it doesn’t cover all expenses, including the pending caregiver bill, he said.

“The idea that we ought to pay for the new things we do by eliminating the things that are not important … is not a novel idea outside of Washington,” Coburn said. “It is only a novel idea inside Washington.”

Coburn’s defeat on an attempt to get the veterans’ funding bill rewritten does not necessarily mean the Senate is now free to pass the veterans caregiver and health bill that has been tied up since Oct. 15. The next items on the Senate’s schedule is debate on national health care reform, which could last well into December.