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It seems like the sort of bill that should’ve passed unanimously. The legislation’s formal name is the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 (S.3373), but most folks just call it the PACT Act, and it’s tough to argue against its merits.
As we’ve discussed, many U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan were exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits, which incinerated hazardous materials, including jet fuel and medical waste. Many of the servicemen and women who breathed in fumes from these burn pits returned home and experienced serious symptoms. There are concerns that prolonged exposure to burn pits might even be responsible for giving some veterans cancer.
The point of the PACT Act is simple: It would expand treatment eligibility and ensure these veterans receive proper medical care.
The bill, which has bounced back and forth between the chambers in recent months, was supposed to clear the Senate last week. It did not. On a procedural vote that needed 60 senators, the PACT fell four votes short, due entirely to Republican opposition.
After the bill was blocked, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was seen on the Senate floor, congratulating his colleagues with fist-bumps. The question, of course, is why in the world they did this. The Texas Republican briefly spoke to TMZ the other day and tried to explain himself. After saying he “supports” the legislation he helped derail, Cruz added:
“[W]hat the dispute is about is, the Democrats played a budgetary trick, which is, they took $400 billion in discretionary spending and they shifted it to mandatory. The reason they did that is, they want to spend $400 billion more discretionary funds on completely unrelated matters. So, it’s just part of the out-of-control spending from the left.”
He added that if the “budgetary trick” were removed, the bill would likely pass “with 80 or 90 votes.”
Let’s briefly pause to note that, according to Cruz, even if this budgetary provision were addressed, a significant number of Senate Republicans — 10 to 20 — would apparently vote against it anyway.
But I digress. The budgetary question surrounding reclassifying V.A. spending from discretionary to mandatory accounts is admittedly complex, and for Republicans like Sen. Pat Toomey, it’s been the principal reason to oppose the PACT Act.
But there’s one thing that Cruz has conveniently skipped right past: The provision he calls a “budgetary trick” was in the bill when he voted for it.
As The Military Times explained, “Several Republican senators who objected last week have justified their flip in recent days by insisting that Democrats only recently inserted the problematic issues into the bill, but the discretionary spending language provisions are the same as June, when the measure easily passed the Senate.”
Quite right. It’s not a matter of opinion. The CBO report shows that this provision was in the bill when it passed, 84 to 14, on June 16. Changes to the legislative text are readily available and unambiguous.
In other words, most GOP senators were so unconcerned about this budgetary dispute that they ignored Toomey’s concerns and voted for the PACT Act in mid-June. Then, last week, 25 Senate Republicans changed their minds and used a procedural vote to block the bill.
The question they haven’t yet answered is why they reversed course and rejected the legislation they’d already voted for. Even if we concede the point about budgetary concerns, that doesn’t explain the shift, since those same concerns existed before the June 16 vote.
Let’s make this plain: If Cruz was so worried about the discretionary-to-mandatory provision, why did he vote for the PACT Act in the first place, only to reverse course? Might it have been part of a partisan tantrum after Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin struck a deal on an unrelated package?
While that question lingers, senators will soon get another chance to aid the veterans who’ve been exposed to these dangerous toxins: Democratic leaders have announced plans to bring the measure back to the floor this week, perhaps as early as today. Watch this space.