The budget proposals — which outline the president’s priorities for next fiscal year — are expected to undergo significant revisions in coming months as lawmakers add and adjust to the spending outline.

That work usually begins in February, but delays in finalizing the fiscal year 2024 budget have pushed back that timeline. Congress is expected by the end of this month to finalize plans for Defense Department spending and other agencies which have been operating without a full-year fiscal plan since Oct. 1.

On Tuesday, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young is scheduled to testify before the Senate Budget Committee about the president’s budget plan.

Tuesday, March 12

Wednesday, March 13

Thursday, March 14

The deployment makes the North Chicago complex the final Defense Department medical site to begin using the new record system, and the first Veterans Affairs site in 21 months to launch the software. VA officials announced a halt to all new site deployments in April 2023 amid growing concerns about staff training and system readiness.

Whether the deployment to Lovell FHCC would go ahead as scheduled this month was in doubt just a few weeks ago, with lawmakers and advocates questioning whether enough fixes had been made to VA processes to ensure patient safety.

VA halts all new work on health records overhaul

But Neil Evans, acting director of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, told reporters this week he is confident that patient safety will be improved — not jeopardized — with the launch of the new records system.

“We believe that it is important for us to operate as an integrated system,” he said. “We want to make sure that we are integrated and functioning as a cohesive whole, and making sure this will work as expected. We’re not concerned about unleashing new issues.”

Since President Donald Trump announced plans to put VA and the Defense Department on the same health records system in 2017, the effort has been fraught with software problems, employee frustrations and patient safety concerns.

After deployment to just five sites, VA Secretary Denis McDonough halted all future installations at veterans medical centers until officials were confident that those issues had been corrected.

Several lawmakers have openly questioned whether VA’s $16 billion contract with Oracle Cerner will ever produce a workable system for the department. But McDonough and Oracle officials have insisted the problems can be fixed, given time and focus on the issue.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department’s version of the software — MHS Genesis — has largely been installed with only minor technical setbacks. In a statement, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Lester Martinez-Lopez said deployment of the system to Lovell FHCC “will help DOD and VA deliver on the promise made to those who serve our country to provide seamless care from their first day of active service to the transition to veteran status.”

The Illinois medical center is a joint VA and Defense Department facility which provides care to about 75,000 veterans, service members and family members annually. It is the only joint health care complex of its kind in the nation.

Evans said bringing all of those patients into a single records system will help with coordinating care and provide important insights for VA’s future software deployments.

But in the short term, the move will leave some VA patients in the North Chicago region who use multiple health care sites with two sets of medical records: one in the new Millennium software, and one in VA’s legacy VistA platform.

Those double records have led to problems in the past, particularly with fulfilling pharmacy orders. Evans said officials have made adjustments in recent months and will be closely monitoring the issue going forward.

Steve Nikoui, the invited guest of Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., was escorted out of the House chamber after screaming “Abbey Gate” and “Marines” multiple times at President Joe Biden as he spoke about violent crime in America. Biden glanced briefly at Nikoui before Capitol Hill security forced him out of the chamber.

The New York Times reported that Nikoui was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for disrupting the speech.

Nikoui’s son, Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, was one of 13 service members killed in the August 2021 attack, along with hundreds of Afghan civilians, when a suicide bomber attacked the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport. Defense Department officials blamed the attack on the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate.

I am honored to have Steve Nikoui as my guest to #SOTU. He is the father of LCpl. Kareem Nikoui, who was KIA due to Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.@JoeBiden may try to turn the page on Afghanistan after his incompetence cost American lives, but NOT ON MY WATCH. pic.twitter.com/wE3uKrMlEa

— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) March 7, 2024

Republican lawmakers and family members of several of the service members killed have blamed Biden for the deaths, insisting they came as a result of the rushed departure of U.S. military forces from the country.

Mast was one of several Republican lawmakers to invite family members of the deceased troops to the speech. The Republican lawmaker backed Nikoui’s outburst in a series of social media posts after the incident.

“For the last three SOTU speeches, Joe Biden REFUSED to say the names of the 13 U.S. [service members] who were killed by his disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal,” he wrote. “I couldn’t support this effort more.”

The Sergeant at Arms is holding my State of the Union guest for yelling at @POTUS in protest because his son was killed in action at the Abbey Gate due to Biden’s incompetence.

So much for the right to petition our government for the redress of grievances.

— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) March 8, 2024

Nikoui has been an outspoken critic of the administration in the past. Several Republican lawmakers also interrupted Biden during his address, though none were removed from the chamber.

The misdemeanor charge typically carries a small fine and no jail time.

“No U.S. boots will be on the ground,” Biden said. “A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day. And Israel must also do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the cross fire.

“To the leadership of Israel I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.”

Senior administration officials told reporters earlier Thursday the mission would route humanitarian aid through Cyprus to the temporary port in Gaza. The White House is also pushing Israel and Egypt to allow more aid through the land crossings at Rafah and Kerem Shalom.

The announcement, which drew bipartisan applause from lawmakers gathered, came amid calls from Biden for Congress to pass his long-stalled foreign aid bill to arm Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.

The Senate passed the $95 billion foreign aid plan by a 70-29 vote in February. It includes $14 billion in Israel military aid, $48 billion in security assistance for Ukraine and $4 billion to arm Taiwan.

Israel receives an annual $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid, but the White House has said the Defense Department lacks the replenishment funds needed to continue arming Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles.

There’s also $2.4 billion in the bill for U.S. Central Command to respond to the uptick in attacks on American forces since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023; as well as $542 million for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in response to its fiscal 2024 unfunded priorities list.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has so far refused to put the bill on the floor amid growing resistance to additional Ukraine aid from Republican lawmakers as well as opposition from former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary race.

“Now assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership,” said Biden, invoking former Republican President Ronald Reagan. “Now my predecessor tells Putin ‘do whatever the hell you want.”

The reference to Trump’s remarks at a campaign rally last month in which the former president voiced frustration with some NATO allies underspending on defense drew “boos” from Republicans in the crowd.

“Send me the bipartisan National Security Bill. History is watching,” Biden said, staring down Republican members of Congress who have opposed the measure. “If the United States walks away now, it will put Ukraine at risk, Europe at risk, the free world at risk, emboldening others who wish to do us harm.”

Biden also promised a strong response to other national security threats, including strikes to degrade Houthi capabilities in the Red Sea. “As commander in chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and military personnel.”

Despite limited details about the plan for a humanitarian port, the idea drew immediate praise from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., and fellow panel member Angus King, I-Maine, who last week urged the administration to deploy a Navy hospital ship to the region.

“The civilian suffering in Gaza must be alleviated, and a maritime aid route will enable large quantities of food, shelter, and medical supplies to be delivered to those who need it most,” the pair said in a statement. “This temporary port, along with the ongoing airdrop campaign, will help ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

“That’s money that could be getting my kids into baseball or basketball or dozens of other activities that could improve our quality of life,” Powers said. “We’ve got enough money to survive, so I’m lucky that way. But after the military, we shouldn’t just be thinking about surviving. It should be about helping veterans thrive.”

Powers traveled from Ohio to take part in a rally outside the Capitol Tuesday in support of the Major Richard Star Act, legislation that could provide a windfall of disability payouts to nearly 50,000 veterans. More than 100 advocates took part in the event, pushing for renewed action on the long-stalled bill.

Advocates say the money is intended to establish a more fair process for how the government handles compensation for individuals injured during their time in the ranks.

Fixing disability and retirement pay is Congress’ next big vets issue

“Our veterans cannot afford to continue losing their full earned military retirement pay because Congress insists on saving money at their expense,” said Tim Peters, an Air Force veteran and state adjutant for the Montana Veterans of Foreign Wars. “It’s objectively wrong.”

The legislation has been a top priority of veterans advocates for several years and passed out of the House Armed Services Committee last summer. But it has been stalled in the House and Senate since then, in part because of cost concerns, and in part because of general congressional inaction in recent months.

Named for an Army veteran who died from cancer complications in 2021, the measure deals with how veterans’ disability benefits are classified under federal statute.

Since 2004, veterans forced to retire early from the military because of injuries receive both their full military retirement pay and full disability benefits if they have a disability rating of at least 50%. The combined total of the two benefits can amount to several thousand dollars each month.

But veterans in the same situation who have a disability rating of less than 50% are subject to dollar-for-dollar offsets under federal rules. That means that officials subtract several hundred or several thousand dollars each month from individuals receiving the disability support, leaving a gap in their income.

Navy veteran Bob Carey, executive director of the National Defense Committee, said the practice costs him $723 a month.

“I’ve had my disability rating since 2005. So that’s $158,000 I’ve lost over the years because the federal government says, ‘You don’t need all that money,’” he said. “And we’re the only federal employees who have our retirement reduced that way.”

Members of The Military Coalition echoed that sentiment, pledging the efforts of their 35 organizations in getting the measure passed this year.

Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, joined Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., at the rally in supporting the bill, but also acknowledged that more pressure will need to be put on their colleagues to force the measure to move forward.

“This is long past time,” Tester told the cheering crowd. “We’ve got 70 co-sponsors in the Senate … We need to make sure leadership puts this on the floor.”

Lawmakers said the most likely route for congressional passage is inclusion in the annual defense authorization bill, currently being crafted by the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. Advocates have about two months to convince members to do that.

If not, the measure could pass as a stand-alone bill, but congressional infighting has scuttled all but a few non-essential measures in recent months.

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act nearly a year after he was arrested in the most consequential national security leak in years.

The 22-year-old admitted illegally collecting some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and sharing them with other users on Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani scheduled sentencing for September in Boston’s federal court and said she would decide then whether to formally accept the agreement, which calls for a prison sentence between 11 and nearly 17 years. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the high end of that range.

“Mr. Teixeira callously disregarded the national security of the United States and he betrayed his solemn oath to defend the country and the trust of the American people he swore to protect,” Matt Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security, told reporters after the hearing.

The stunning security breach raised alarm over America’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members found to have intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

Teixeira smiled at his father before being led out of the courtroom with his hands and legs shackled, wearing orange jail garb and black rosary beads around his neck. He stood flanked by defense attorneys through much of the hearing and occasionally leaned down to speak into the microphone to answer questions from the judge.

Michael Bachrach, an attorney for Teixeira, told reporters they will push for a sentence of 11 years. Bachrach described Teixeira as a “kid,” adding that the defense will show at sentencing that his youth played a significant role in his conduct.

“He is significantly remorseful for his conduct. He has accepted full responsibility for his conduct,” Bachrach said.

In an emailed statement, Teixeira’s family said: “It is unfathomable to think your child would ever be involved in something so serious, but he has taken responsibility for his part in this, and here we are.”

“Our focus now remains on Jack – his protection, health, and well-being, and taking care of whatever is in his best interest,” they said.

Teixeira, who was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks. He remains in the Air National Guard in an unpaid status, an Air Force official said.

Authorities said he first typed out classified documents he accessed and then began sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. Prosecutors also said he tried to cover his tracks before his arrest, and authorities found a smashed tablet, laptop and Xbox gaming console in a dumpster at his house.

The leak exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, including information about troop movements in Ukraine and the provision of supplies and equipment to Ukrainian troops. Teixeira also admitted posting information about a U.S. adversary’s plans to harm U.S. forces serving overseas.

Acting Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Josh Levy told reporters Monday he would not speculate on Teixeira’s motive. But members of the Discord group described Teixeira as someone looking to show off, rather than being motivated by a desire to inform the public about U.S. military operations or to influence American policy.

In exchange for Teixeira’s guilty plea, prosecutors agreed not to charge him with further Espionage Act violations. As part of the deal, Teixeira must participate in a debrief with members of the intelligence community, the Defense Department and the Justice Department about the leaks.

Teixeira has been behind bars since his April arrest. The judge denied his request for release from jail last year after prosecutors revealed he had a history of violent rhetoric and warned that U.S. adversaries who might be interested in mining Teixeira for information could facilitate his escape.

Prosecutors have said Teixeira continued to leak government secrets even after he was warned by superiors about mishandling and improper viewing of classified information. In one instance, Teixeira was seen taking notes on intelligence information and putting them in his pocket.

The Air Force inspector general found that members “intentionally failed to report the full details” of Teixeira’s unauthorized intelligence-seeking because they thought security officials might overreact. For example, while Teixeira was confronted about the notes, there was no follow-up to ensure the notes had been shredded and the incident was not reported to security officers.

It was not until a January 2023 incident that the appropriate security officials were notified, but even then security officials were not briefed on the full scope of the violations.

The plan — which lawmakers aim to bring to the House and Senate floor later this week — would total more than $328 billion in appropriations for VA, another significant boost for a department which has seen steady growth for more than two decades.

In fiscal 2001, the entire VA budget amounted to $48 billion in spending. Ten years ago, that total was $153.9 billion, still less than half of the planned budget for this fiscal year.

In a statement, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the funding plan “honors the sacred obligation we have to take care of our veterans when they come home by fully funding veterans’ medical care and benefits and delivering essential resources VA needs to operate.”

Veterans advocates push for another big boost in VA funding next year

The measure includes a provision that would prohibit VA officials from submitting veterans’ names to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System without a judge’s consent, a move that could block them from owning firearms.

House Democratic lawmakers have long opposed the provision, saying it unnecessarily limits federal workers’ ability to report potential threats. But House Republicans have worried that without the language, veterans who need assistance managing finances but pose no threats can be reported anyway, depriving them of their Second Amendment rights.

“No veteran should lose their constitutional right to bear arms simply because they need help managing their finances,” House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, D-Ill., said in a statement. “And if they are a danger to themselves or others, a judge should make that decision, not a VA bureaucrat.”

Even with the controversial provision, the budget plan — part of a $467.5 billion spending package covering six separate federal departments — is expected to pass through both chambers of Congress.

Much of the money set aside for VA has already been given to the department, through advance appropriations and a series of short-term spending bills passed over the past five months. The total VA budget also includes $20.3 billion for VA’s Toxic Exposures Fund, used to help cover costs associated with benefits expansion under the 2022 PACT Act. That measure provided new disability compensation to troops exposed to burn pit smoke, chemical contamination and other toxic exposure events during their military service.

The total is mostly in line with adjusted White House budget requests made over the last year. However, discretionary spending — non-mandated programs and initiatives — is nearly equal to last year’s levels, limiting expansion of some administration goals.

Lawmakers included in the budget plan a 17% increase in VA mental health programs, to $16.2 billion; a 15% increase in department homelessness prevention programs, to $3.1 billion; and an 18% increase in women veterans’ health programs, to $990 million.

The budget calls for $1.3 billion less in spending on the department’s electronic health records overhaul, funds that are not needed because of the ongoing pause in the effort.

The fiscal 2024 budget plan also includes about $308 billion in advance appropriations for fiscal 2025, ensuring that VA operations will continue mostly uninterrupted if Congress cannot settle on a budget plan for next year by their mandated deadline.

White House officials are expected to unveil their budget proposal for next fiscal year on March 11.

Although policies directly impacting American troops or their families are not expected to be featured in the national speech, Biden is expected to talk about continued U.S. military support for Ukraine in their war against Russia and U.S. assistance to Israel in their ongoing military operations in Gaza.

He is also expected to broach Congress’ ongoing budget impasse. Federal agencies — including the Defense Department — have been operating on short-term budget extensions for five months because of political fights over spending levels.

White House budget planners are expected to unveil their plans for the fiscal 2025 federal budget on March 11, but lawmakers are unlikely to have the fiscal 2024 year-long spending plan finalized before then. Last week, House and Senate members approved another short-term budget extension, with promises of finishing a full budget plan by the end of March.

Wednesday, March 6

Thursday, March 7

Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, who has led the Texas Military Department for the last two years, stood in uniform beside Trump during a televised speech in Eagle Pass, Texas, after the former president’s visit to the southern U.S. border.

The move prompted criticism on social media for violating strict military rules regarding appearances in uniform at political rallies and events.

Suelzer served in the active duty Air Force for 10 years, and the Air Force Reserve for seven more, before joining the Texas Air National Guard. His current post is a political appointment, in contrast to nonpartisan Defense Department leadership roles.

Does the National Guard have to follow Pentagon orders? Sometimes.

National Guard Bureau officials confirmed Friday they have received multiple queries on Suelzer’s appearance with Trump and are reviewing the incident. Air Force officials referred all questions to the Texas Military Department, which has not issued any public statements on the matter and did not return requests for comment.

Defense Department officials, particularly in election years, periodically issue reminders that federal rules prohibit servicemembers from appearing in uniform at rallies, protests, or other political events where they could be appearing to be representing the armed services.

Troops are free to make campaign contributions or volunteer on behalf of a candidate, but they cannot undertake those activities in uniform or while on duty.

But Suelzer’s responsibility to adhere to those rules is less clear. Guard members in state active duty status aren’t subject to federal rules, even though they are allowed to wear their regular uniforms.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021 to crack down on the number of migrants who attempt to cross the border into the U.S. Suelzer oversees that mission, and frequently issues statements on the work — and the political fights behind the policies — alongside the governor and other state officials.

Abbott was also on hand for Trump’s immigration event, and praised the former president for his border security policies.

Heidi Urben, a professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service who has studied military rules on politicking, said that while Suelzer’s appearance may not explicitly violate military rules, “it’s a violation of the military’s norm of nonpartisanship.”

She said the logic behind the regulations is to ensure that military members aren’t inferring official sponsorship or approval of a candidate or group’s views.

“From a practical standpoint, violating the norm is just as damaging as violating a rule,” she said. “Survey research shows that the American public doesn’t draw meaningful distinctions between active duty and retired generals, let alone distinguishing across components.”

“Incidents such as this only add to the public’s confusion, or worse, continue to give the impression that the military is a partisan actor.”

In 2020, then Defense Secretary Mark Esper issued a memo ahead of the presidential election warning all service members that “as public servants who have taken an oath to defend these principles, we uphold DOD’s longstanding tradition of remaining apolitical as we carry out our official responsibilities.”

Both Trump and President Joe Biden received criticism for the appearance of uniformed military personnel during their nominating conventions in 2020. Veterans running for Congress have received similar rebukes for using old service photos in their campaign materials without specific disclaimers, but those incidents rarely result in any real punishment.

Urben warned that military personnel need to be aware of events they attend and the potential public reaction from those appearances.

“Because politicians in both parties seem unable to resist the temptation to use the military as props or a backdrop during partisan speeches, it falls on military officials to exercise good judgment and uphold the spirit and intent of the norm of nonpartisanship,” she said.

In a letter sent to VA Secretary Denis McDonough on Thursday, the 56 representatives expressed concern over a December report from the department’s inspector general that outlined “shortcomings in the Veteran Health Administration’s treatment of survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault at VA facilities.”

Among their findings were a lack of sexual assault kits at VA medical sites, only 42% of facilities surveyed reported having the equipment on hand, and a lack of staff who knew how to use them, only 6% of facilities had certified personnel on hand.

Mental health outreach efforts need more focus on women vets: report

Investigators also expressed concern that despite department rules mandating mental health referrals be made at victims’ request within 24 hours of an assault report, staffers failed to document whether those resources were made available in more than half of the cases reviewed.

“For survivors of acute sexual assault, proper and thorough care, including psychological care, is imperative,” the lawmakers wrote.

The congressional letter comes just a few days after the release of a Disabled American Veterans report on female veterans’ challenges which noted that as many as one in three women enrolled in department health care have reported some form of military sexual trauma. However, researchers found only about 30% of women who report that trauma successfully have it included in their medical records.

Advocates behind that report argued that changes in how the department handles sexual assault and harassment cases could help improve overall mental health care and results for women veterans.

The inspector general’s office recommended new training for all front-line staff “to properly handle acute sexual assault cases and maintain procedural knowledge” to fix all of their reported shortfalls.

Lawmakers said they want a report on proposed reforms by mid-March. VA officials have not yet responded to the request.

Prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a change of plea hearing, but no other details were immediately available. The judge set the hearing for Monday in Boston’s federal courthouse.

15 Air National Guardsmen disciplined in Discord server leak

Teixeira had previously pleaded not guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The Massachusetts U.S. attorney’s office declined further comment. An attorney for Teixeira didn’t immediately return a phone message Thursday.

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, has been behind bars since his April arrest for a leak that left the Biden administration scrambling to assess and contain the damage among the international community and reassure allies that its secrets are safe with the U.S.

He was accused of sharing classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other sensitive national security topics on Discord, a social media platform popular with people who play online games. Investigators believe he led a private chat group called Thug Shaker Central, where enthusiasts shared jokes, talked about their favorite types of guns and discussed wars, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities say Teixeira, who enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, began around January 2023 sharing military secrets with other Discord users — first by typing out classified documents and then sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. Teixeira worked as a “cyber transport systems specialist,” essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks.

Authorities have said that Teixeira was detected on April 6 — the day The New York Times first published a story about the breach of documents — searching for the word “leak” in a classified system. The FBI says that was reason to believe Teixeira was trying to find information about the investigation into who was responsible for the leaks.

Prosecutors say he continued to leak government secrets even after he was warned by superiors about mishandling and improper viewing of classified information. After being admonished by superiors, he was again seen viewing information not related to the intelligence field, not his primary duty, according to internal Air National Guard memos filed in court.

Authorities have provided few details about an alleged possible motive, but accounts of those in the online private chat group where the documents were disclosed have depicted Teixeira as motivated more by bravado than ideology.

Prosecutors had urged the judge to keep Teixeira jailed while the case played out, in part because of an arsenal of weapons found at his home and his history of disturbing online statements. That included one social media post saying that, if he had his way, he would like to kill a “ton of people” because it would be “culling the weak minded.”

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani last year denied Teixeira’s bid for release, saying “no set of release conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community, or prevent destruction of evidence.”

In pressing for their client to be freed from jail, Teixeira’s attorneys pointed to the pretrial release of former President Donald Trump and others in high-profile classified documents cases. Teixeira’s lawyers noted that prosecutors did not seek to detain Trump — or his co-defendant, Walt Nauta — even though they said the former president and his valet “possess extraordinary means to flee the United States.”

A full-year continuing resolution that would keep fiscal 2023 spending levels through the rest of 2024 means the U.S. Army, for instance, would run out of operations and maintenance funding in the European theater as it trains Ukrainian soldiers to defend against Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country, which has entered its third year.

The financial strain is compounded by the lack of certainty over whether Congress will pass a supplemental funding package that would reimburse the Army for expenses incurred so far in bankrolling support to Ukraine.

The Army already spent $500 million in the European theater in operations and maintenance, and “we were counting on a supplemental to be able to sort of replenish us for that,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at a Feb. 27 Defense Writers Group event. “What that means is probably by late spring, summer, we would have to make some difficult choices about other [NATO] exercises, for example, that our forces participate in.”

Additionally, the Army has been funding support to Israel to include deployments of units to the Middle East in the event they are needed, she added.

Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told reporters Feb. 28 at the Pentagon that the service spent $100 million in U.S. Central Command’s area of operations as well as another $500 million to support the U.S. Southwest border security mission.

“I do worry. Our budget has been flat for the last couple years. We don’t have a lot of cash under the sofa cushions, and if we don’t get a budget and we don’t get a supplemental, we’re going to probably have to cancel some things,” Wormuth said.

The Army is prioritizing current operations, Camarillo said, which means it is “going to have to look to other areas of O&M spending where they “can potentially take some risk,” including “exercises and the degree to which we participate in some around the globe. We might have to scale some of that back in the absence of an appropriation this year.”

For the Air Force, Kristyn Jones, who is performing the duties of the service’s undersecretary, told reporters alongside Camarillo that in order to pay its personnel, training exercises would take the hit.

“Anything that’s already on a [Foreign Military Sales] case won’t have a dramatic impact, but all of the replenishment that we’re expecting in the supplemental is currently impacted. And even things like F-35 [fighter jet] training that we’re planning … with our allies and partners, that’s impacted by not having this appropriation as well.”

The Air Force is focused on trying to ensure flight hours are maintained, but it’s also important, Jones noted, that pilots receive training.

Despite the military’s experience in warfare, “we’re in a different strategic environment and we need to do the exercises, often joint and allied, to prepare for that environment. And the lack of our ability to do that doesn’t allow us to, again, to test the new techniques, the new military tactics that we’d like to have primarily for an Indo-Pacific fight,” Jones said. “That’s really where we need to stretch our muscles a little bit more.”

Learning from sequestration

With a possible extended or full-year continuing resolution, the service undersecretaries said the last time the military felt such a painful budget crunch was during the 2013 sequestration, where the services were required by law to make percentage cuts evenly across spending lines.

One of the fallouts of the 2013 sequestration was a rise in aviation mishaps because vital training flight hours were cut. Military Times and Defense News took a deep dive into aviation mishaps from FY11 through FY18 and uncovered the trend.

“Safety is always going to come first,” said Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven, “but we did look at the lessons of 2013 and sequestration, where we spread risk around the enterprise, and I think the concerns about maintaining ready and trained forces are part of the lessons that we’re using to inform if we get into this worst-case scenario where we don’t have our ’24 budget enacted and we are under a CR.”

“We’re not going to repeat that same peanut butter spread,” he added.

But trade-offs will be inevitable, he acknowledged, and “we’ll have to look across the board to see how to maintain the focus on current operations.”

Paparo’s confirmation was advanced by a voice vote without any objections late Wednesday evening, alongside 25 other senior military promotions. The chamber also confirmed Aprille Joy Ericsson as assistant secretary of defense within the Department of Defense’s research office in a voice vote.

Paparo will replace Adm. John Aquilino, who has served in the INDOPACOM role since April 2021. Paparo currently serves as commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, and was nominated for the new role last August.

How Adm. Paparo will lead the US military in the Indo-Pacific

During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 1, Paparo listed China, Russia and North Korea as the most pressing threats to U.S. military interests in the Pacific.

“If confirmed, I will ensure that we maintain the overmatch that preserves stability today, tomorrow, next week and for the decades to come,” he said.

Paparo is the son of an enlisted Marine and the grandson of an enlisted sailor who fought in World War II, according to his command biography. The Pennsylvania native has served in a variety of leadership roles during his 37-year military career.

A TOPGUN graduate, Paparo has logged more than 6,000 hours flying the F-14 Tomcat, the F-15 Eagle and the F/A-18 Super Hornet and has 1,100 carrier landings under his belt. As a fighter pilot, he took out a surface-to-air missile site in Kandahar during the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

He was one of hundreds of military leaders whose promotions and confirmations were held up for months last year after Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., staged a protest over the Defense Department’s abortion access policies.

Tuberville dropped those holds in December, but Paparo’s confirmation took several more weeks because of lingering background work by the Senate committee.

INDOPACOM oversees more than 380,000 American servicemembers stationed overseas and is responsible for all U.S. military activities in 36 nations.

The recommendations are included in a new report released Thursday by the Council on Criminal Justice’s Veterans Justice Commission, which also calls for an overhaul of post-military transition classes to better prepare departing troops for civilian life.

“Transition is still not treated as a priority by the Department of Defense,” according to the report. “The result is a fragmented and under-resourced system that leaves too many service members ill-prepared for civilian life. This lack of preparation increases their vulnerability to involvement in the criminal justice system.”

The commission is chaired by former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and counts among its members former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Alford McMichael, Georgia Supreme Court Justice Michael Boggs, and a host of other retired defense and Veterans Affairs officials.

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In a statement, Hagel said the report offers a path to provide more help to the 181,000 veterans currently imprisoned in state and federal facilities and future veterans who could face similar legal problems.

“All of our veterans should be leading healthy, productive civilian lives,” he said. “It is unconscionable that so many land in our criminal justice system, in large part because we aren’t doing more to help manage the legacy of their military deployments.”

Implementing the group’s recommendations for reforms would cost nearly $5 billion over the next decade, a figure the report authors acknowledged as costly. “But we also recognize the high cost of failing too.”

The most expensive steps would be the changes to eligibility for VA health care and veteran education benefits.

Currently, troops leaving the military can use some VA medical services for up to 10 years after their separation, but the process is not automatic. Fewer than half take advantage of the benefit.

“Given the heightened likelihood of multiple deployments, combat exposure, and associated injuries … the absence of robust care increases the risk that these conditions will not be sufficiently treated, therefore leading to an elevated likelihood of violent and criminal behavior,” the report stated.

“Additionally, veterans lacking VA care and benefits are more likely to face financial insecurity, a factor that has been linked to a greater propensity for criminal behavior.”

Similarly, the report argues that making GI Bill benefits available to more veterans can stave off potential future financial problems and criminal temptations. Currently, veterans with other than honorable separations (about 12,000 troops annually) are not eligible for education assistance.

“While other than honorable discharges comprise approximately 6% of all discharges, they make up 18% of the discharges held by incarcerated veterans,” the report stated.

Implementing those changes — and most of the others in the report — would require congressional action. At present, there are no legislative proposals moving through the House or Senate related to those kinds of benefits expansions.

The commission launched in 2022 and is expected to offer additional recommendations before sunsetting in 2025.

Veterans Affairs officials say the move is meant to be a technical correction to definitions governing online-only college programs, and does not require a formal public review period.

But 25 veterans organizations — including The American Legion, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America — said the change raises serious concerns about how students may use or misuse the GI Bill in the future.

In a letter to VA Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs last week, the groups voiced “deep opposition” to the move, saying it for the first time opens GI Bill funds to “unaccredited online programs that do not lead to a degree.” The groups are now asking for the changes to be halted, or at least subjected to a public review period mandated for similar sweeping changes.

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“The impact of the proposed changes will lead to veterans being charged their GI Bill for what amounts to simple access to the internet,” said William Hubbard, vice president for Veterans and Military Policy at Veterans Education Success, which has led the effort to block the change.

“VA will have opened a loophole in the GI Bill that provides the worst scammers out there with direct and unchecked access to veterans and their valuable GI Bill dollars.”

At issue is how online-only college programs are handled under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which provides at least 36 months of tuition costs for student veterans or eligible family members. Recipients are also eligible for a monthly housing stipend, although students attending classes completely online receive a lesser payout than their on-site peers.

The total value of the benefit can be well over $100,000, a sum that has made veterans a target for scammers — as well as for-profit and not-for-profit schools — over the years.

In 2021, partially in response to the massive upsurge in students attending remote classes during the American COVID-19 pandemic, VA officials held a public review of those online learning courses with the goal of simplifying some of the participation rules. Online-only classes currently fall under the broad category of “Independent Study” programs.

Originally, the rule changes focused mainly on which states were responsible for accrediting online-only programs. But in recent months, regulators shifted the proposed changes to include removing remote classes from the Independent Study category, in an effort to reduce confusion over the differences between college classifications and actual course work.

Advocates say that reclassification — whether purposefully or accidentally — removes requirements for those schools that their programs be accredited by state agencies and provide degrees for students. Instead, online-only classes would exist in a legal gray area, with less regulation and oversight.

“A veteran could be charged their GI Bill by an education program that consists exclusively of YouTube tutorials and leaves the veteran with no industry-recognized credentials,” VES officials warned in a memo on the changes provided to VA and congressional officials.

The veterans groups objecting to the move said the idea was not part of the 2021 public comment sessions on the GI Bill, but instead was proposed by bureaucrats behind the scenes after public comments closed.

Now the veterans groups want the public review reopened, so they can discuss potential problems with those changes.

In a statement, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said officials are reviewing “additional methods of obtaining public comment” on the matter but have not committed to restarting the process.

He said VA leaders believe the proposed changes will allow the department to continue “working in partnership with State Approving Agencies to protect the integrity of VA education benefits offered while also looking to expand the options available to allow veterans to grow professionally and personally.”

VA officials have not released a timeline for when the new rules may go into effect. Veterans advocates are hoping they can persuade department leaders or lawmakers to stop the process before they do.

They say that more outreach and research efforts are needed to more effectively encourage women veterans to seek care, instead of relying on male-focused messaging already in use by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“The lack of recognition for women’s service, isolation after separation from military service, poor social support and unique risk factors all contribute to the challenges and barriers that many ill and injured women veterans face as they transition from service members to civilians and work toward physical recovery and mental wellness after service,” the report stated.

Women make up about 10% of the veterans population and roughly the same percentage of enrolled patients in the VA health care system, according to Veterans Affairs statistics. Those numbers are expected to grow significantly over the next decade.

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DAV researchers said mental health outreach for VA officials has shown important advances in recent years, but often that messaging is focused solely on the needs and challenges of male veterans.

In particular, report authors noted that VA suicide prevention efforts do not include components on military sexual trauma or postpartum adjustments, both of which increase the risk of suicide among female vets. Little research has been done on whether firearms safety efforts should be adjusted to improve outreach to female veterans.

“Too many women veterans are unaware of the resources available to them or struggle to access the timely, quality mental health services that are essential to recovery and overall well-being,” the report stated.

At a forum unveiling the report on Tuesday, a panel of experts said the process of fixing those shortfalls needs to start with a recognition that adjustments to existing male-only efforts aren’t providing all of the help that women veterans need.

“When I left the military more than 30 years ago, VA was just beginning to focus on the growing number of women veterans,” said Army veteran Joy Illem, national legislative director for DAV. “Much has changed for the better since then, but there’s still so much more to be done.”

VA officials said they are working to address that.

“There’s a lot of research underway on barrier reduction, better understanding of how women veterans use the Veterans Crisis Line, how they may use it differently and their experiences,” said Dr. Elizabeth Yano, a health care researcher at VA.

“We need to better understand what leads women veterans to suicide, the gender differences in suicidal thoughts and attempts, what they experienced when they enter care, how hard it is to get care and how to eliminate those barriers.”

The full report is available through the DAV website.

The move comes in response to a lawsuit filed last month by the Transgender American Veterans Association, which argues department officials are endangering the health of transgender veterans by refusing to provide gender confirmation surgery.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough in June 2021 announced plans to offer the procedures, also known as gender reassignment surgeries, at some department medical centers as part of larger efforts to make VA “more welcoming” to all veterans.

But in the nearly three years since that announcement, no surgeries have been performed, and the issue remains stalled in the rulemaking process.

Transgender vets sue VA to force move on gender confirmation surgeries

In response to the TAVA lawsuit, McDonough on Feb. 22 issued a memo saying the department has not yet decided “how and when it might ultimately provide gender affirming surgery” and that officials need to better understand how other recent rules changes — including an expansion of health care options under the PACT Act — might impact the number of veterans eligible for those procedures.

During a press conference on Monday, McDonough said he expects that review to take several months.

“I’ve said before that transgender veterans deserve world-class health care and benefits, and that gender-affirming care should be available to all vets who need it,” he said. “But we’re not ready to begin rulemaking at this point to address [gender confirmation surgeries.]”

Advocates have decried those delays. In their lawsuit, TAVA officials called the surgeries “medically necessary care” and said the failure to move ahead with the procedures “puts transgender veterans at increased risk of physical harm, psychological distress, and suicide.”

In a statement Monday, officials from the Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic (which filed the lawsuit along with TAVA) said that McDonough “has broken his promise to transgender veterans to provide life-saving, doctor-prescribed, transition-related surgical care” with the latest move.

On Monday, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Mark Takano, D-Calif., echoed those concerns.

“VA has been studying the impact of gender-affirming care on the veteran community for years,” he said in a statement. “All of the studies I have read point to this type of care being important and necessary for transgender veterans. I am extremely frustrated that it has taken three years for VA to make this disappointing decision.”

Takano noted that the department’s inaction on the issue comes as transgender health care has become a target of conservative lawmakers across the country. He criticized the department for failing to lead on the issue.

“I will continue to push the secretary to make the right decision,” he said. “This unacceptable outcome cannot be the final word from this administration.”

McDonough did not give a specific end date for the latest review, but said he would “be prepared to dig into that as soon as it’s finished.”

In the past, VA officials have estimated that as many as 4,000 veterans nationwide would be interested in the procedures, also known as gender reassignment surgeries. The department does offer other support for transgender veterans, but those services have come under criticism from conservative lawmakers in recent months.

The hearing, in front of the House Armed Services Committee, comes after several chamber lawmakers have already called for Austin’s resignation over the episode.

Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Jan. 1 after developing a urinary tract infection from complications related to prostate cancer surgery on Dec. 22. Senior military leaders were not informed of his condition until several days later, and White House officials — including President Joe Biden — were not made aware the defense secretary was hospitalized until Jan. 5.

Earlier this month, acknowledged communication mistakes in his handling of the incident and said his decisions were “more about privacy than secrecy.”

White House officials and many congressional Democrats have offered their support for him in recent weeks, but congressional Republicans have said the incident raises significant questions about the security of the military’s chain of command.

Tuesday, Feb. 27

Wednesday, Feb. 28

Thursday, Feb. 29

On Thursday officials from Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States released their annual Independent Budget report, arguing for continued investment into VA programs and priorities in the years ahead.

The move comes as Congress is still struggling to finalize its fiscal 2024 budget for VA operations, even though the new fiscal year started nearly five months ago. VA officials have been continuing services through a mix of short-term budget extensions approved by Congress and advanced appropriations approved in late 2022.

Advocates noted in their budget pitch that returning to stable annual funding for the department — and other federal agencies — must be lawmakers’ top priority in the months ahead.

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“Continuing disagreements over federal government funding levels have resulted in ongoing concerns about whether VA will be able to meet the needs of veterans, their families, and survivors,” the report stated.

“The use of continuing resolutions have hampered VA’s ability to meet increased demand for care and benefits. Although advance appropriations ensure VA can provide uninterrupted medical services and benefits, the threat of lapses in funding causes uncertainty and anxiety for veterans and complicates VA’s ability to focus on its core mission.”

The White House’s fiscal 2024 budget request for discretionary programs — services and initiatives are separate from mandatory payouts like veterans benefits — totaled nearly $138 billion, a record for the department. The Independent Budget report calls for that to increase about 10% in fiscal 2025, to more than $150 billion.

Much of that would be focused on medical care. Group officials estimate as many as 130,000 patients could enroll in VA health care next fiscal year, thanks to legislation — like the PACT Act — passed in recent years.

The report notes that while department officials have made medical staff hiring a priority in recent years, “the Veterans Health Administration is still facing shortages of mental health care professionals across the country” and “fell short of its targets for Licensed Practical Nurses and Certified Nursing Assistants.” Fixing that will require more funding boosts.

The advocates also project increases in dental care use among enrolled patients and long-term care expenses among aging veterans. The Independent Budget calls for an increase of $150 million in suicide prevention programs and $160 million in women veterans health care to help advance those priorities.

VA has seen steady funding growth for more than two decades, even at times when other federal agencies have been forced to make cuts.

In 2001, the entire VA budget — including both discretionary program spending and mandatory benefits payouts — amounted to about $45 billion. By 2013, the budget totaled $139 billion, still less than half of this year’s request. In fiscal 2023, the department’s total budget topped $300 billion for the first time.

Biden is expected to release his fiscal 2025 budget request on March 11. But Congress has several other budget deadlines to worry about before that.

The latest short-term funding extension for federal agencies is set to run out for a handful of departments on March 1 and for all government operations on March 8. If lawmakers can’t reach a new deal by then, the impasse would trigger a shutdown of most federal operations and services.

Deaton, who was born in Detroit and recently moved to Massachusetts, released a campaign video Monday highlighting his hardscrabble upbringing, his years in the Marines serving as a judge advocate at Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona, and his career as a lawyer in part representing mesothelioma victims.

Deaton cast himself as a fighter for the working and middle classes.

“I fought for the little guy. I took on the greedy corporations and the heartless insurance companies and I won,” Deaton says in the video. “I am running for U.S. Senate to continue my life’s mission to shake things up for the people who need it most.”

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Deaton, a virtual unknown in Massachusetts politics, faces a steep climb against Warren, a former Harvard law professor who has twice won a Senate seat, but came in third in Massachusetts in her 2020 bid for president.

Warren currently has more than $3.9 million in her campaign account.

If elected in November, Deaton said he would take on the insurance industry and drug companies for more affordable health care, work across the political aisle to help solve the migrant crisis, fight inflation and push for term limits for those he described as “career politicians.”

Deaton, 56, also directly criticized Warren, 74.

“Elizabeth Warren, well she promised to be a champion for those in need. Instead she gives lectures and plays politics and gets nothing done for Massachusetts,” he said.

A spokesperson for Warren says she’s taking nothing for granted and “has a strong record of delivering for working families and continues to fight hard for the people of Massachusetts.”

Warren released a report Tuesday detailing the more than $50 billion in federal support for Massachusetts that she said she has secured during her time in the Senate, including funding for roads and bridges including the Cape Cod bridges; $185 million in broadband funding for high-speed internet access; and $270 million in grants to firefighters.

Deaton grew up in Detroit’s Highland Park neighborhood, which he described as one of the poorest and most dangerous in the country. He said he was one of six siblings whose mother held the family together with the help of food stamps, welfare and odd jobs.

He said his youth was marked by violence, physical and sexual abuse, and what he described as a survival-first mentality.

Deaton said he became the only member of his family to graduate high school, went to college at Eastern Michigan University, where he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent treatment while still pursuing his degree. He was accepted into Boston’s New England School of Law in 1992.

While in law school, Deaton enlisted in the Marines and was medically retired in 2002 following a non-combat injury, starting his own law firm in Rhode Island,

As an attorney, Deaton said he has represented mesothelioma, cancer and asbestos victims.

Deaton has also delved into cryptocurrencies.

He said he was drawn to the technology by remembering how his mother relied on what he described as “predatory inner-city check cashing operations” and was intrigued by cryptocurrency’s ability to help the underprivileged and unbanked.

Warren has been a prominent backer of regulating cryptocurrency, calling it “the preferred tool” of money launderers and other criminals.

In a letter sent Tuesday to President Joe Biden, key leaders from the House Armed Services Committee called for the budget plan to include plans to improve military housing, junior enlisted pay, military health care options, base childcare availability and military spouse employment assistance programs.

The lawmakers said they hope to address those issues as part of the upcoming annual defense authorization bill, but said a strong show of support from the White House regarding the issues is needed to produce fixes.

“The committee’s quality of life inquiry thus far has revealed an alarming erosion of military quality of life that, if not addressed quickly, will soon place the all-volunteer force at risk,” the lawmakers wrote. “Reversing this decline will require a national commitment of resources to address quality of life concerns for service members and their families.”

Lawmakers press for junior enlisted pay boost as soon as possible

The push was signed by committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., quality of life panel chairman Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and panel ranking member Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa. The group has been outspoken in recent months about the need for a congressional focus on military quality of life issues.

Biden is expected to release his fiscal 2025 budget request on March 11. But Congress still has not finalized plans for the current fiscal year budget, even though fiscal 2024 began on Oct. 1.

The latest short-term funding extension for federal agencies is set to run out for a handful of departments on March 1 and for all government operations on March 8. If lawmakers can’t reach a new deal by then, the impasse would trigger a shutdown of most federal operations and services.

Biden is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union address before both chambers of Congress on March 7. White House officials have not yet indicated how much — if any — of the speech will focus on military family and service member benefit issues.

Earlier this month, Bacon told Military Times that he is focused on addressing several key military quality of life issues through legislation this year, but noted that those fixes may come in the form of multi-year plans.

Among them — and among the requests outlined in Tuesday’s letter — are junior enlisted pay increases and dealing with “aging and poorly maintained barracks, dormitories, and single-family housing forcing service members and their families to contend with mold, pests, and other unacceptable habitability problems.”

“This is a large, costly undertaking, but it is our moral and national security imperative to support those who serve,” they wrote.

Most junior enlisted service members currently make around $24,000 a year in basic pay, while enlisted troops nearing retirement typically earn about $70,000 annually. In contrast, the most junior enlisted officers make at least $46,000 annually, and most make more than $80,000 a year with just six years of time in service.

The lawmakers noted that even with other bonuses and allowances, that level of salary can result in “food insecurity and economic insecurity with escalating negative impacts on recruiting and retention.”

All service members are scheduled to receive a 4.5% raise next January under the federal formula used to determine military month pay, which would be the third consecutive year of pay raises above 4% for troops.

But lawmakers have argued that those boosts do little to close the significant gap between officer and enlisted pay, and do not fully account for inflation costs in recent years.

That’s the premise behind a $6.8 million research effort headed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that aims to develop technology that could change the voting game for troops stationed far from home and even deployed to remote locations.

Steve Trout, head of government partnerships for DARPA contractor VotingWorks, puts his vision more bluntly: “My goal is there’s a ballot cast from the International Space Station.”

VotingWorks and DARPA held a preview demonstration Feb. 7, with military representatives and state government officials in attendance, to show what a “first-class” military voting experience could look like.

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The problem, as presenters outlined it, was clear: For troops and family members, voting looks and feels very different than it does for most Americans. They mail an absentee ballot that may look unlike the one used in their state or local voting region, and won’t get counted until an audit period some time after the projected winners have all been announced.

And that difference in experience and perception directly translates to voting participation: According to information presented by VotingWorks, military voters have an average turnout of 47%, compared to 74% for civilians. Polling data presented underscores the part that voting challenges play in nonparticipation.

Some 54% of surveyed military members who wanted to vote but didn’t said they had trouble requesting an absentee ballot, and another 43% said the ballot never arrived at all. Other reasons for not voting included a too-complicated voting process, difficulty with the mailing system, and trouble accessing their state’s election website.

The technology proposal from VotingWorks would change the game with portable one-stop voting stations, compact enough to fit in a big suitcase, that print a paper ballot just like the one corresponding to a service member’s local election and also generate a label for mailing that mallet to the correct polling center, all the way up until the night of the election.

An end-to-end encrypted electronic version of the ballot is then immediately transmitted to the local election center for counting, while the paper version follows in the mail, allowing the hard copy to be verified within the three-to-four week audit window following an election.

In this scenario, the process is all enabled through the service member’s military common access card, or CAC, which verifies their identity, thereby sidestepping the most challenging problem standing in the way of large-scale electronic voting.

VotingWorks leaders are quick to stress that they’re not trying to develop an internet-based voting system. Nor, they say, are they working to solve civilian absentee voting problems.

“We are explicitly not trying to use military voting as a jumping-off point for broad internet voting,” said Ben Adida, executive director of VotingWorks. “We have aspects of our design that are only going to work for the military, and we’re 100% okay with that.”

While the effort is still in a research phase, company leaders at the end of the year want to present DARPA with a working prototype and open-source design code “so anybody can take it and go from there,” Adida said. While plans are not yet final, limited-scope pilot programs may be rolled out in 2025 to test the usefulness of the technology.

Dan Wallach, program manager for the DARPA Innovation Office, said in 2025, after the close of the 2024 presidential election cycle, will present more opportunities for trial and experimentation.

“You don’t roll out new things in a high turnout, high-stakes election,” he said. “When we’re voting for the dog-catcher, that’s when you try the new stuff.”

The innovation behind the current proposal is a dual-track system in which the voting stations, consisting of a terminal and printers for ballots and mailing labels, are distributed across military bases and deployed environments.

After securely identifying a military voter via their CAC card, the stations dispense a paper ballot, which can be filled out and mailed using the label. Ballots also are scanned electronically, allowing the encrypted votes to be instantly and securely transmitted to polling places and counted with those of local voters.

The military voter’s paper ballot will arrive after the election, but in time to be included in the vote audit, which verifies election results and can take up to four weeks after an election to complete.

To work well, the voting stations will need to be secure enough that theft or breach of a station won’t result in a compromise of ballots or voter data, and able to function with minimal internet connectivity ― while electronic transmission will be necessary to send votes, the stations need to be able to print the right local ballots and mailing labels for any military voter while offline. That’s all in the design specifications, Adida said.

“We’re going to try to do it with the minimum amount of internet and the minimum amount of cell service, sporadically,” Adida said. “Maybe at one base, you don’t have an internet connection, but maybe you can write some USB sticks and get them transported to a base that does have internet.”

Christy McCormick, the chairwoman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, expressed skepticism that the system would work as advertised.

“I was tasked with getting election results back to the Pentagon as part of my job when I was in Iraq, and we couldn’t even use CAC cards,” she said. “So there’s some huge hurdles here in these countries, especially war zones, where you’re not going to have a place to put that machine.”

McCormick, who was stationed in Iraq from 2009–2010 as an elections expert with the Department of Justice, told Military Times after the presentation that she was hopeful about the new project, but aware of the extensive collaboration from federal agencies and the Defense Department that would be needed to make such a proposal successful.

“It’s always worth the attempt,” she said, “And I hope that they can get those issues worked out, that we can enfranchise more of our overseas population.”

Wallach, of DARPA, said a combination of new and maturing technology and the narrow scope of the effort

“There’s been a lot of research on electronic voting and security over the past few decades that this program has drawn on,” Wallach said, adding that the relatively new post-election risk-limiting audit process and advances in encryption all helped to make a better military voting solution practical.

“There are a bunch of things that are very recent,” he said, “And putting them together is what’s novel.”

In a series of letters sent Feb. 5, the head of the National Guard Association of the U.S., retired Maj. Gen. Francis McGinn, claimed that the Pentagon is 16 months late in submitting plans for boosting such pay. The fiscal year 2022 defense policy bill required the Defense Department to study how it could provide equivalent special and incentive pays to part-time troops and send Congress a copy of their implementation plan.

The Pentagon submitted a report to Congress on the topic in the spring of 2023, but McGinn argued the department “did not comply with congressional intent and did not provide an implementation plan, as required.”

At issue are 18 entitlements such as aviator incentive pay, which distributes up to $1,000 per month to qualified active duty pilots, and jump pay, which pays $150 per month to active duty who jump at least once every three months.

Although part-time service members must satisfy the same eligibility requirements (and incur the same minimum risk, in the case of hazardous duty) to earn such pays, they do not receive the same amount of money. Reserve component paratroopers, for example, receive only $5 in jump pay for each drill period or annual training day they complete, despite still needing to jump as often as their active duty counterparts.

While the fiscal 2022 law explicitly directed the military to provide equal pays for equal skills or equal risks, the bill also said the pay tables won’t change until the defense secretary formally tells Congress that doing so won’t negatively impact recruiting and retention of active duty service members.

The Department of Defense acknowledged but did not respond to questions sent for this story. Pentagon officials told lawmakers in March 2023, though, that they fear increasing part-time special and incentive pays could lead troops to leave active duty for the Guard or Reserve.

But McGinn argued that fear misses the point.

“Long gone are the days where we could focus on one component over the other,” he said in the letter. “We must look for new ways to encourage, reward and retain military service across all components. We cannot afford to lose and of our skilled professionals just because the [Pentagon] is slow rolling the will of Congress.”

Davis Winkie, the author of this story, is a member of the National Guard Association of the United States.

On Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, released a statement announcing that “the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has made available to all members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat.”

He also urged President Joe Biden to declassify details of the threat as soon as possible.

The news spurred alarm and confusion among members of Congress. Overnight, the Associated Press reported the issue centered on highly sensitive intelligence concerning Russian anti-satellite weapons currently under development.

House Intelligence Committee chair warns of national security threat

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby partially confirmed those reports on Thursday, but declined to give specifics on the weapon. Kirby said the weapon would be based in space, but was not currently in orbit.

“This is not an active capability that has been deployed,” he told reporters at a White House briefing. “And though Russia’s pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there is no immediate threat to anyone’s safety. You’re not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth.”

Several members of Congress were scheduled to receive a briefing on the issue later on Thursday. Kirby said that any anti-satellite capability “should be of general concern because there are a number of private and public satellites circling the Earth every day,” but there is not a need for immediate international response.

“I would not speak publicly about our strategic deterrent capabilities one way or the other,” he said. “But we’re taking this potential threat very, very seriously.”

Kirby declined to say whether White House officials were upset with Turner for making news of the threat public, deferring questions to the congressional committee.

Turner issued a statement Thursday saying that his panel “worked in consultation with the Biden Administration to notify Congress of this national security threat” and that administration officials were informed of his announcement before it was released.

Kirby said U.S. officials are in contact with Russian representatives about their concerns. Relations between the two countries have been strained by American support for Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia.

VA and Oracle Cerner officials said final fixes for the problem should be in place in coming days, but outside experts and lawmakers questioned whether those updates will fully address the system failures. And the setback again raises questions about when — if ever— the Millennium records system will move to other sites within the veterans health system.

The revelations came at a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, the latest in a series of oversight events scrutinizing the embattled medical records system. Lawmakers lamented that despite repeated promises from officials involved with the project, little progress has been made in the last year.

VA won’t restart health records overhaul until next summer, if at all

“The situation we found in May of last year was dangerous and unsustainable, and it seems much the same today,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., chair of the committee’s technology panel.

“Simply put, the medical centers using the Oracle Cerner electronic health records have been turned upside down. … The results of the VA and Oracle strategy to improve the EHR have been one step forward and one step backwards. We’re not gaining on this.”

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump announced a new 10-year, $16-billion plan for VA to adopt the Millennium system in an effort to put veterans health records and military medical files into the same software platform for the first time.

The new system was installed at five sites — the Spokane VA Health Care System in Washington, the VA Walla Walla Health Care System in Washington, the Roseburg VA Health Care System in Oregon, the VA Southern Oregon Health Care, and the VA Central Ohio Health Care System — before VA officials announced a full halt on the rollout in April 2023.

The move came in response to widespread employee discontent with the new software and concerns about patient safety due to system shortfalls. At Thursday’s hearing, Dr. Neil Evans, acting program director for the health records project, said no timeline has been finalized for resuming that work.

He said officials have made “incremental but steady progress” but still need to put in place other system improvements, including issues surrounding pharmacy records.

But officials from the VA Office of Inspector General found significant lingering problems with how pharmacy records are shared between medical sites, with the new health records software and sites still using the department’s legacy records system, VistA.

Investigators found evidence that mail order pharmacy data for nearly 120,000 patients is outdated or could contain mistakes. About 250,000 patients total could face complications due to incomplete information in their records.

They warned that patients “may be prescribed contraindicated medications” because of the errors and noted that some health care providers at legacy sites “are making clinical decisions based on inaccurate data.”

Officials from VA and Oracle Cerner said they have partially addressed the issue in recent months and hope to have another software patch related to the pharmacy issues in place in the next few weeks. But that update was already rescinded once because of errors that emerged in testing trials.

Despite those problems, and despite the department’s pause in the Millennium system rollout, the department is planning to launch the records software at the Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago next month. The site is a joint medical center with staff from VA and the Defense Department, which has not experienced the same issues with its implementation of new health records systems.

Mike Sicilia, executive vice president at Oracle Corporation, said the improvements made to the VA records system in the last year should make the rollout at that site less complicated and error prone.

But lawmakers on the panel dismissed that optimistic outlook.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result,” Rosendale said. “I have come to believe that continuing this effort — to transform the Oracle Cerner pharmacy software into something completely different — is insanity.”

He and several other lawmakers have called for VA to abandon the project, despite the $9 billion already spent on the effort.

VA Deputy Inspector General David Case said his office has seen improvements in project management over the last year but warned numerous other fixes will be needed to get the records system rollout back on track.

“As VA moves toward its deployment next month at a complex facility jointly operated with the Department of Defense, transparency, communication, and program management will be essential to getting it right,” he said. “Failures in these areas risk cascading problems.”