[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18906-S18907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           VETERANS' BENEFITS

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia for 
putting together a letter to the President asking the President to do 
what we believe he has the right to do, and that is pay veterans' 
benefits.
  Obviously, all of us are going to continue to negotiate and work with 
our leaders and are negotiating to stop the shutdown of Government. 
But, Mr. President, we do not have a whole lot of time before veterans' 
benefits are going to be late or will not be there at all, and that is 
not right. These are earned benefits.
  We believe and we have gotten legal opinions that say that the 
President has the right to declare that veterans' benefits are 
essential. Who could question that veterans' benefits are an essential 
part of Government?
  But, in fact, the Veterans Affairs bill that was passed by both 
bodies and sent to the President was vetoed in recent days. Now, once 
again, we are faced with veterans' benefits not being paid. The 
President and his administration said during the last Government 
shutdown that veterans' benefits are not on the list, not on the 
essential list. We believe that is an erroneous assumption; that is an 
erroneous look at the regulation and the laws that are in place right 
now. If anything is essential in this Government, it should be 
veterans' benefits. In fact, the President has declared that the people 
who process the veterans' benefits are essential, but the benefits are 
not. I would leave you to get the logic of that.
  Mr. President, we have sent a letter to the President--Senators 
Warner, Simpson, Dole, and myself, along with 34 other cosigners of the 
letter--asking the President merely to do what we believe he has the 
right to do, and let veterans know just before the holiday season that 
their benefits will not be late.
  But, in fact, if the President does not do this, we are prepared to 
pass a bill through the Senate that would require 

[[Page S18907]]
him to do it, or give him the authority to do it. The House is going to 
take that bill up tomorrow or the next day. We will take it up 
immediately thereafter. But the President could keep us from having to 
go through that routine if he is sincere in wanting to do what is right 
for the veterans of our country.
  I want to say thank you to Senator Warner for starting this process, 
for bringing it to our attention. I also want to say, because there are 
people on the floor here, that the authorization bill for the 
Department of Defense that just passed was obviously tough. It was a 
close vote. A lot of people are responsible for the authorization going 
through, making sure that the Defense Department does have the funding 
that it needs, especially in this time when we have young men and women 
going to Bosnia and who will be there and will look to us for the 
stability of funding to make sure that they have what they need.
  I thank Senator Thurmond, the chairman of the committee, for his 
leadership. He did a wonderful job. Without him, this bill would not 
have gone through. There are two or three other people who were 
integral to this process, and I want to say that Senator Warner from 
Virginia, Senator Lott from Mississippi, and Senator Cohen from Maine 
were essential to getting this bill through, to working it and staying 
with it and not giving up, despite the differences on the two sides of 
the aisle.
  So I thank the Senator from Virginia, and I commend him for getting 
his letter to the President. I hope the President will respond to the 
veterans and give them a Christmas present. They should not be put at 
peril and should not have to worry about it.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Texas for her 
thoughtful remarks. Indeed, she deserves an equal amount of credit for 
getting this conference report passed. True, our distinguished whip, 
Mr. Lott, Mr. Cohen, and others, took active negotiating roles, but 
she, too, was there. We thank her.
  I am delighted that the Senator mentioned the soldiers, sailors, 
airmen, and marines going to Bosnia because this letter, Mr. President, 
reflects the sentiment of the Congress of the United States toward 
veterans. But they will be veterans some day. It is the continuity of 
the treatment of veterans by the Congress of the United States that 
enables this country to continue to get the finest and the best 
qualified to come in and wear the uniforms of our armed services today, 
tomorrow, and in the future. So each time we deal with a veterans 
issue, we should think about the current generation serving, for they 
will some day be veterans, together with their families and loved ones.
  I ask unanimous consent that this letter prepared by the Senator from 
Texas, Senator Simpson, Senator Dole, myself, and others, be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                Washington, DC, December 19, 1995.
     The President,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: We are disappointed that you chose to 
     veto the 1996 Veterans Affairs, Housing, and Urban 
     Development and Independent Agencies appropriations bill. 
     Your veto threatens hardships for our nation's veterans, 
     unless you exercise your authority to ensure basic 
     entitlements required by law are continued.
       We consider it an unresolved issue whether the ``faithful 
     execution of the laws'' clause of Article II of the 
     Constitution permits the President, in the absence of an 
     appropriation, to enter into any obligation to pay benefits 
     that are expressly required by law. It is our view that 
     veterans' benefits have the same status as other earned 
     benefits upon which people depend to live, and should be 
     designated as essential and payments continued.
       Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, in his 
     memorandum interpreting earlier Department of Justice 
     opinions on the consequences of a lapse of appropriations, 
     writes that, ``Efforts should be made to interpret a general 
     statute such as the Antideficiency Act to avoid the 
     significant constitutional questions that would arise were 
     the Act read to critically impair the exercise of 
     constitutional functions assigned to the executive.'' Rather 
     than avoiding this question, or ceding authority to Congress, 
     we believe you should act to carry out the laws of the United 
     States for the benefit of veterans.
       If you decide not to declare veterans benefits essential, 
     we intend to bring up a funding resolution quickly to provide 
     necessary appropriations. We hope you will act first, making 
     such action unnecessary.
           Sincerely,
         John Warner; Alan Simpson; Kay Bailey Hutchison; Bob 
           Dole; Lauch Faircloth; Dan Coats; Pete V. Domenici; Rod 
           Grams; Jon Kyl; Bill Frist; Richard Shelby; Craig 
           Thomas; Richard G. Lugar; Alfonse D'Amato; Conrad 
           Burns; Mitch McConnell; Ted Stevens; John H. Chafee; 
           Judd Gregg; Bob Smith; Larry Pressler; Thad Cochran; 
           Chuck Grassley; Jim Jeffords; Connie Mack; John McCain; 
           Nancy Landon Kassebaum; Rick Santorum; Spencer Abraham; 
           Olympia Snowe; Frank H. Murkowski; Dirk Kempthorne; 
           John Ashcroft; Don Nickles; Trent Lott; Strom Thurmond; 
           Larry E. Craig; Slade Gorton.

  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.

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