Sen. Kevin Cramer Friday on Newsmax defended his vote that helped to block a bill to expand medical coverage for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits while serving overseas, arguing that Democrats "put veterans behind their other pet projects" by moving $400 billion of discretionary money over to a mandatory spending side.
"By putting it in the mandatory side, that means it's no longer subject to the normal appropriations process," the North Dakota Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "That also leaves the $400 billion funding hole on the discretionary side, which allows Democrats to fill that hole with other pet projects."
However, he said, the bill may not have to wait and could pass as early as Tuesday, if Democrats will drop the mandatory spending requirement.
"We didn't even have an amendment vote on this," he said. "This thing could pass very, very quickly. I believe it will. It's too important not to."
Veterans, Democrats, and celebrity Jon Stewart, who has thrown his support behind the bill, Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, or the PACT Act, had expected the bill, which had bipartisan support, to easily pass through the Senate.
However, the shift in funding led Cramer and other Republicans to reject the measure, leading to a furious response from Stewart and from veterans' groups who were in the nation's capital Thursday.
But Cramer said that as a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, he does support the burn pit legislation and that he supports its eventual passage, but not the "egregious" move by Democrats to shift how its funding will work.
"We are already in a situation where about two-thirds of our budget is mandatory, which means that the people's representatives in Congress who are supposed to have oversight to have authorization authority are hamstrung by this process," said Cramer.
The veterans, meanwhile, "have become political pawns in the Democrats' scheme to put more money on the mandatory side of the ledger so they can spend more money on climate change and green new deals and in all kinds of other pet projects rather than on the veterans themselves," said Cramer.
However, Cramer warned that providing more healthcare for burn pit victims will also create a larger backlog of care for the veterans.
"There's already a backlog of services for veterans in the VA system," he said. "This is going to add a whole bunch more. It's going to put a lot of other people to the back of an already very long line."
Cramer said his preference would be to have major overhauls of the system, so the VA is providing resources and veterans can get the care they need as quickly as possible."
The senator also spoke out about the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act, which got renewed hope this week after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he has reached a deal to vote for it.
"If you and I hired a whole bunch of economists to come up with a dumber idea during inflation, they couldn't have come up with this one," said Cramer. "Increased taxes on job creators, that 15% minimum tax, that's not just a tax increase. It's hardest on energy companies and others that are already suffering, from inflation and adding to inflation as a result of it, but it changes the way we tax businesses altogether."
The measure will also "accelerate inflation" by sending more taxes on projects that are "unnecessary," said Cramer, adding that he was surprised by Manchin's change of heart, but not necessarily shocked."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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