U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent said drastic cuts to veterans benefits is one of the main reasons he voted against last week’s budget deal.
The budget, negotiated by Republican House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray, would reduce the cost-of-living adjustment for military retirees to 1 percent less than the rate of consumer inflation — and even reduces payments for veterans who were wounded in action. The cut will go into effect in 2015 and is expected to save more than $6 billion over 10 years.
“I am definitely going to co-sponsor one of the fix proposals. I voted against the bipartisan budget deal in the first place precisely because it hurt military families. That’s a non-starter for me,” Nugent said.
Nugent, a Republican who represents The Villages, said cutting veterans benefits is wrong.
“The budget deal limits Cost Of Living Adjustments to inflation minus one percent. The whole point of a COLA is to keep up with the rising cost of living and the proposal Congress passed explicitly does the opposite,” Nugent said.
“Frankly, I don’t understand why Congress moved forward with this last week just to realize they needed to undo it the following week. I guess leadership put it on the floor too quickly and members didn’t have a chance to fully read the bill. Whatever the reason, it was wrong-headed, in my opinion, and we definitely need to get this fixed.”