April 3, 2025
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NTU urges all members to vote “NO” on H.R. 2102 / S. 1032 – “The Major Richard Star Act.” This expensive, duplicative, and unpaid-for expansion of veterans benefits would increase costs for the Department of Defense (DoD) by $78 billion over ten years, hurting military readiness and increasing taxpayer costs. With the federal debt at $39 trillion and counting, it is time for Congress to take a more sober look at potential benefit expansions before voting for them.
Over the last couple of weeks, NTU has raised concerns about several expensive bills that expand benefits for veterans without offsetting the increased cost to taxpayers. The Major Richard Star Act (HR 2102/S 1032) is the most expensive proposed veterans expansion we have seen in some time. Since it would greatly increase costs for the DoD by providing duplicative disability benefits, we oppose this bill as currently written.
If approved by Congress, the Major Richard Star Act would allow combat-injured veterans with fewer than 20 years of service to receive full DoD medical retirement benefits and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits for the same injury. Currently, to avoid “double dipping” of benefits, DoD benefits are offset dollar-for-dollar after a veteran applies for and is awarded VA benefits for the same injury. According to veteran service organizations that support the bill, approximately 50,000 combat-injured veterans would benefit from this change, but CBO estimates the actual number could rise to as much as 255,000. While advocates view this benefit expansion as a correction of an omission in the PACT Act, this is in fact an expansion of veterans benefits that should be carefully considered, and—if widely supported—be fully offset by reductions in government spending elsewhere.
Veterans have protected our freedoms and way of life, and deserve our thanks and support. In recognition of this service, veterans have received generous benefit expansions in recent years, including the PACT Act. However, these benefit expansions have helped overall spending at the VA to grow by over 500% in the last 20 years, from $60 billion in 2004 to $326 billion in 2024. As this rate of growth is unsustainable in today’s federal budget context, it would simply be irresponsible to pass this bill without offsets.
Roll call votes will be included in NTU’s annual Rating of Congress and “NO” votes will be considered the pro-taxpayer position.
If you have any questions, please contact NTU Senior Policy Manager David Timmons at dtimmons@ntu.org.
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