In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Thursday, the chambers’ top Democrats — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York — asked for a meeting on the looming fiscal issues early next week, to stave off a budget crisis.

“The government funding issue must be resolved in a bipartisan way,” the pair wrote. “That is the only viable path forward …

“It is past time you reveal your plans to meet the needs of the American people. Otherwise, it is clear that you have abandoned bipartisanship altogether and are preparing to shut down the government.”

Lawmakers have until Sept. 30 to pass a new budget for the next fiscal year (which starts Oct. 1) or approve a short-term extension of current agency funding levels.

Failure to do either will force a partial shutdown of most government activities until a new funding deal is reached.

For the Department of Defense, that will mean shuttering of some non-essential base offices and training. Troops will still be expected to report for duty, but their paychecks may be delayed.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, most hospital and benefits processing offices will remain open, thanks to advance funding approved for the agency in the past. But some information hotlines will be shut down, and other non-critical services will halt during the political impasse.

Neither Republican leader offered an immediate response to the Democratic leaders’ request. Both men have said that resolving the funding issue will be their top priority when Congress returns from its summer recess next week.

Although GOP lawmakers hold a majority in both chambers, several prominent Republicans have suggested they may not support a short-term budget deal, preferring to return to regular order in the appropriations process. But the majority of funding bills still have significant work to be completed before final passage.

That would mean at least some Democratic votes will likely be needed to approve any funding package and avoid a shutdown.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said he would meet with Schumer and Jeffries to discuss potential points of compromise, but added that “it’s almost a waste of time to meet because they never approve anything.”

Defense Department leaders have warned about the potential detrimental impact of a government shutdown on military operations, even if troops and essential personnel remain on the job. They said that shuttering support services for military families and disrupting long-term procurement plans undermines force readiness initiatives.

The last major government shutdown occurred in December 2018 during the first Trump administration and lasted for 35 days. That dispute, which centered on immigration policy and funding, did not include the Departments of Defense or Veterans Affairs, but did result in delayed paychecks for tens of thousands of U.S. Coast Guard personnel.

Lawmakers are expected to return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

During an Oval Office event with military families on Monday, Trump praised the work of VA Secretary Doug Collins thus far, asserting that the department now has a “93% approval rating” under his leadership.

“We had a great first term and it was pretty close to that then,” he said. “And then [President Joe Biden’s administration] took over and it went down into the 30s and 20s. It went down at one point to 28% or 29%, which is terrible … But now you’ve blown everyone away, Doug.”

Trump’s boast appears to reference VA’s periodic survey of veterans who have used department health care services in the last 90 days. As of the start of August, the satisfaction rate with VA medical care sat at 92.8%, the highest mark in the 30 months that the survey has been conducted.

When that polling began in March 2023 — during the Biden administration — the figure was 90.4%. It has steadily improved nearly every month for the past two and a half years, regardless of which administration was in charge.

The broader VA Trust survey, conducted quarterly since early 2016, shows a similar story. At the start of Trump’s first term in the White House, only about 55% of veterans said they trusted the department to “fulfill our country’s commitment to veterans.” By the time Trump left office at the end of 2020, the number was up to nearly 79%.

VA data shows the trust score remained between 78% and 81% during Biden’s entire term in office, far above the under 30% that Trump claimed on Monday. The latest department update shows that 79.2% of veterans expressed confidence in the department at the start of the summer, down about 1% from a year earlier.

Department researchers also began an annual outpatient survey in fiscal 2017, during Trump’s first term in office, to gauge satisfaction rates.

That year, 85% of patients said they were happy with how agency staff handled their outpatient care appointments and procedures. At the end of Trump’s first term in office, it had risen to 89.1%. At the end of last fiscal year — the latest data available — the number was up to 92%.

Trump claimed the improvement in veterans perception of VA came because the previous administration “gave away choice and accountability … and we put them back.”

That claim has been at the root of continued political sparring between administration officials and Democratic critics of Trump’s veterans policies. Republicans in recent weeks have pushed through a series of reforms designed to make it easier for veterans to access health care options outside the VA system, but the impact of those moves still remains to be seen.

During Monday’s event, Collins noted that department officials have reduced the disability claims backlog by about 40% since January. That number has also been in steady decline for the last two years, since the backlog spiked to more than 400,000 cases after the passage of the PACT Act.

Late last week, the Office of Personnel Management announced in an email to federal workers that they had canceled plans for the 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, typically conducted each spring. Officials had said for months they were revising the poll to better focus questions on key workplace issues and not extraneous topics, such as diversity programs.

The survey is mandated under federal code and provides an annual snapshot of employee satisfaction. Administration officials have not said whether they will provide other avenues for tracking those metrics.

Earlier this summer, in response to questions about workforce changes, Veterans Affairs officials said they would conduct their own all-employee survey in conjunction with the FEVS.

However, after last week’s decision, VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said that his department “is following OPM’s lead on this issue and will not be conducting the VA All-Employee Survey this year.”

He also dismissed concerns that the absence of the polling data would ignore concerns within the department’s workforce.

“VA employees are happy the department is fixing many of the problems left by the Biden administration and is making improvements across the agency,” he said in a statement.

The VA All-Employee Survey has been conducted every year since 2006. In 2012, the results ranked the department as the second-worst large federal agency to work for, out of 19 departments. By 2024, that ranking had risen to fifth-best.

About 72% of VA employees surveyed said they were satisfied with their jobs in 2024, up from about 55% a decade before. Officials from President Joe Biden’s administration frequently cited the survey as evidence that they were making workforce improvements throughout VA.

Whether this year’s survey would have shown continued optimism or new problems will remain unknown. Union officials and critics of President Donald Trump have strongly objected to a host of workforce reforms by his administration in recent months, including trimming nearly 30,000 jobs from the department payroll since January.

Earlier this month, VA Secretary Doug Collins announced plans sever ties with most federal employee unions, terminating their collective bargaining contracts.

About 450,000 federal employees currently work at VA hospitals, benefits centers and other offices. In the past, nearly three-fourths of the workforce participated in the employee surveys.

Last month, VA administrators launched a partnership with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to recover improper payments to medical providers who billed both agencies for patient services. An initial review found roughly $106 million in duplicate billings over a six-year period.

But that may be just the start. About 5.9 million veterans are dually enrolled in VA health care and Medicare, creating confusion in some instances regarding which government agency is responsible for covering the costs of appointments and medical procedures.

A new health care analysis released by the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute on Tuesday found that nearly 84% of the 8.2 million veterans enrolled in the VA health care system have some form of secondary medical coverage, including Medicare, private insurance or Tricare services.

“Enrollment in multiple forms of health care coverage indicates potential inefficiencies and raises questions about whether different programs are making duplicative payments for the same care,” researchers noted in the report.

They argue that fixing the problem requires better tracking of which medical systems veterans are enrolled in and what services they are eligible for.

The report notes that while the Veterans Health Administration is already working with Medicare officials on fixes, “making further use of Medicare, TRICARE, private insurer, and Medicaid claims … in combination with VHA enrollment, utilization, and cost data would enable VHA to better track the sources of care for its enrolled veterans.”

RAND officials also recommended better education of patients about their medical options and eligibility, to help inform their choices.

VA officials said that new data-matching agreements with Medicare officials should help curb some of the problems in the future. But they also vowed to continue to look for areas of improvement, both with those two systems and other health care systems.

The move affects members of the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFL-CIO (AFGE), the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

AFGE alone represents about 300,000 employees working for VA. About 80% of the department’s roughly 450,000-person staff are union members.

Department officials said the move was made to “make it easier for VA leaders to promote high-performing employees, hold poor performers accountable, and improve benefits and services to America’s veterans.”

In a statement, VA Secretary Doug Collins attacked the unions as inefficient and harmful to veterans’ care.

“Too often, unions that represent VA employees fight against the best interests of veterans while protecting and rewarding bad workers,” Collins said. “We’re making sure VA resources and employees are singularly focused on the job we were sent here to do: providing top-notch care and service to those who wore the uniform.”

Members of President Donald Trump’s administration have fought with union officials for months. In April, VA stopped withholding union dues from most employee paychecks, citing an executive order excluding some federal agencies from labor-management relations programs.

Wednesday’s move does not impact unions representing 4,000 VA police officers, firefighters and security guards. Officials said the executive order does not apply to those positions.

Union leaders for months have protested against proposed cuts at VA and other federal agencies, arguing the smaller staffs will hurt delivery of benefits and health care. They’ve also accused Collins of working to “privatize” VA services by sending more money for medical appointments into civilian hospitals and medical offices, rather than VA clinics.

The unions have also filed numerous lawsuits against the president’s proposed changes to the federal bureaucracy. On Monday, a federal appeals court paused a preliminary injunction that had blocked department heads from making changes to collective bargaining agreements, allowing Wednesday’s contract terminations to move ahead.

At the time, AFGE National President Everett Kelley called the ruling “a setback for fundamental rights in America” and promised continued opposition to Trump’s proposals.

In a statement after Wednesday’s announcement, Kelley criticized Collins for attacking VA workers’ rights.

“[The] decision to rip up the negotiated union contract for majority of its workforce is another clear example of retaliation against AFGE members for speaking out against the illegal, anti-worker, and anti-veteran policies of this administration,” he said.

“We don’t apologize for protecting veteran healthcare and will continue to fight for our members and the veterans they care for.”

Officials from National Nurses United accused the Trump adminstration of “waging class warfare against working people of America” and similarly promised continued legal challenges.

“This president has made it clear he has no respect for the Constitution, but we believe strongly that our right to join together to collectively bargain is constitutionally protected,” the group said in a statement. “It cannot be swept away through an overreach of an executive order based on spurious claims.”

VA officials said that in addition to eliminating unneeded restrictions on hiring and firing policies, breaking union contracts will free up more than 187,000 square feet of office space currently being used by group representatives.

At the start of 2025, federal unions represented more than 1.3 million government workers across a host of agencies.

The decision — outlined in a post in the Federal Register — would undo the September 2022 order by the previous presidential administration allowing VA medical personnel to conduct abortions in cases of rape, incest and pregnancies that endanger the life or health of an individual.

That policy marked the first time VA physicians were permitted to perform abortions on federal property, even in states where it had been outlawed. The new interim rule revokes that authority, and will require patients seeking abortions to seek that medical care outside the VA system.

In a statement accompanying the proposal, department officials said the move is designed “to ensure that VA provides only needed medical services to our nation’s heroes and their families.” They argued that the decision to provide abortion services was a political one, and not a response to need.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. Since then, 20 states have outlawed or severely restricted abortion services, prompting a national debate over federal departments’ responsibilities and limits in regards to reproductive health services for women veterans.

The rule has been in the works since late July, but has not been publicized by department leaders or White House officials. Per federal regulations, the proposal will now undergo public comment and additional review before becoming permanent policy, but is essentially already being enforced within the department.

It impacts individuals using both VA health care services and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Abortion rights advocates decried the move as an attack on critical medical options for veterans and their family members.

“This proposed rule is a smack in the face to those who have served our country and their loved ones, stripping pregnant women of their bodily autonomy and restricting their access to abortion,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward.

“Once again, extreme politicians are attempting to interfere in patient-doctor decision-making, intentionally eroding the trust between pregnant people and their medical providers.”

Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the move deprives veterans of “life-changing” health care options.

“After veterans put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, the Trump administration is trying to rob them of their own freedoms and putting their health at risk,” she said. “This administration is sending a clear message to veterans: that their health and dignity aren’t worth defending.”

Democratic lawmakers voiced similar concerns.

“The bottom line is, Republicans don’t care if your health is in danger, if you’re a veteran, or if you’ve been raped — they want abortion outlawed everywhere, in every circumstance, for everyone,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. and a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement over the weekend.

“This administration has shown nothing but callous disregard for veterans’ lives, their health care, and their livelihoods—especially when those veterans happen to be women.”

But Republican lawmakers praised the move, accusing President Joe Biden’s administration of overreach with the changes made three years ago.

“Taxpayers do not want their hard-earned money spent on paying for abortions and VA’s sole focus should always be providing service-connected health care and benefits to the veterans they serve,” a group of six House lawmakers led by House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said in a statement. “House Republicans, alongside President Trump, will always stand up for the sanctity of life.”

In their Federal Register filing, VA leaders said the change will not prevent physicians from providing life-saving care in cases of ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages, since other provisions within the law already mandate those protections.

They also pushed back on the presumed demand for abortion services within the veterans community. Department statistics show that roughly 100 veterans and 40 CHAMPVA beneficiaries have received abortions through VA medical centers annually since the policy change in 2022.

But Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., noted in his criticism of the rule change that nearly 500,000 women veterans of reproductive age are enrolled in VA health care, with more than half of them living in states with abortion restrictions.

“We cannot let VA stop providing this care to veterans by ripping away this narrow, targeted protection,” he said in a statement. “I will be fighting as hard and long as possible to reverse this cruel, dangerous new policy.”

The public comment period on the new rule change is open until Sept. 5.

Mason — who previously served as the first woman ever to chair the Board of Veterans Appeals — was approved for the VA Inspector General post by a 53-45 margin, with all of the opposition coming from Democrats.

She replaces former VA Inspector General Mike Missal, who served in the role from April 2016 to January 2025, when he was dismissed by President Donald Trump.

He and seven other fired federal watchdogs have sued the White House over their dismissals, claiming they were done without proper reason or notification. That legal case is still pending.

For months, the firings have drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who see them as an attempt to install administration-friendly officials in the key oversight offices. It has also generated extra scrutiny of Mason’s nomination, since she worked for several months alongside the senior VA leaders she will now be charged with investigating.

Ahead of Mason’s confirmation vote Thursday, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called her “one of the most partisan and least independents we’ve seen in nominees for an inspector general post in recent years.”

He questioned whether she could provide proper oversight for the department, noting her collaboration with Secretary Doug Collins on staffing reforms and her time spent advising Trump’s presidential transition team.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee in June, Mason pledged to be unbiased in her work looking into waste, fraud and abuse at the department and even-handed in her reports to Congress.

“I consider myself to be an impartial, independent aide to the department,” she said. “I am loyal to the veterans. That’s who I serve. That’s who I’m loyal to. I work for the president and the [VA] secretary, but also, if confirmed, I will work for this committee.”

Her confirmation had been stalled for several weeks by a series of Democratic holds, both over her qualifications and related to broader concerns about department cuts and public transparency.

Republican leaders in the Senate have spent most of this week — the last scheduled week of work until September for the chamber — forcing through a series of administration nominations blocked by the minority party.

Mason is the wife and daughter of military veterans and has been a public advocate for military spouse employment opportunities in the past. She worked on the Board of Veterans Appeals during both the first Trump administration and while President Joe Biden was in office.

She is expected to be sworn into the new role in coming days.

The 54-44 vote fell mainly along party lines, with only Nevada’s two Democratic senators — Jackie Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto — breaking ranks to side with Republicans on the confirmation.

Brown, 41, is now poised to take over one of five most senior leadership posts at VA, overseeing maintenance and operations at 155 national cemeteries in 42 states as well as commemorative sites in other locations.

He is a West Point alumnus who served in the Army for five years after graduation. During a deployment to Afghanistan in 2008, he was severely wounded by an improvised explosive device.

Brown suffered burns on nearly a third of his body, including his face and neck, and lost part of his hand in the attack. After his medical retirement from the military, he founded a firm that provided medications to veterans whose government benefits did not provide all the care they needed.

In a statement on social media late Tuesday night, Brown said he was “humbled and honored to give you all my best, again” in the new role.

Brown was tapped by President Donald Trump for the leadership post in early January, even before the new commander-in-chief was sworn into office. But his nomination has been stalled in the Senate for months by Democratic lawmakers upset over a host of department moves and what they claim is a lack of communication from VA Secretary Doug Collins.

Several senators have put holds on all VA nominees, but the Republican majority has the ability to override those blocks by going through time-consuming parliamentary procedures. Brown’s confirmation vote came amid a flurry of work on stalled nominations this week, ahead of a planned chamber recess for the month of August.

Trump has pushed lawmakers to cancel that recess and continue pushing through the list of stalled nominees. Republican leaders in the chamber so far have not committed to that, but are hoping to clear a significant portion of the backlog in coming days.

As such, Brown may not be the last senior VA leader to get a vote this week. On Tuesday, Republican leaders queued up a potential vote on senior Veterans Affairs advisor Cheryl Mason to serve as the next Inspector General of the department. Democrats have objected to her nomination because of questions about her independence in the watchdog role.

Brown is expected to be formally sworn in to his new role in the next few days.

The conflict is the latest chapter in the ongoing story of VA’s federal workforce, and what it will look like in coming years. After President Joe Biden’s administration heavily emphasized building up the department’s employee base in response to higher demands for health care and benefits, President Donald Trump’s White House has reversed that course, pushing for significant cuts and less aggressive recruiting efforts.

On Monday, the House finalized legislation to prohibit payments from the department’s Critical Skill Incentive programs from being awarded to Senior Executive Service employees, in reaction to improper cash awards handed out during the last presidential administration. The measure is expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump in coming days.

The bill comes in response to still ongoing criticism of Biden-era appointees improperly using the cash awards for senior officials rather than hard-to-fill specialists.

Bill sponsor Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas and chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, called the past awards an “abuse of taxpayer dollars” and said the move is needed to ensure integrity and transparency in the department’s bonus programming.

In a related move, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee leaders on Tuesday held a hearing reviewing the department’s recruitment, relocation and retention incentive payment practices, better known as 3R bonuses.

VA leaders awarded about $1.2 billion in those incentives to roughly 134,000 employees from the start of fiscal 2020 to the end of fiscal 2023, according to the VA Inspector General’s office. Officials estimated that about $341 million in bonuses were not properly documented or justified, and about $5 million in awards were improperly handed out to ineligible individuals.

Republican lawmakers said that program is in need of significant reforms too.

“When someone receives a relocation incentive and never actually relocates, that is wrong and a clear waste of taxpayer dollars,” said Rep. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., chairwoman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s panel on oversight. “These are taxpayer dollars set aside for veterans, and for far too long they have been carelessly handled.”

Trump administration supporters praised recent efforts to cut waste and inefficiency within the department. Tracey Therit, VA’s chief human capital officer, said the bonus programs are a critical tool in filling in-demand specialties, but also promised continued reforms within the human resources and financial oversight offices to improve bonus decisions.

“We are confident that the steps we have already taken and continue to take will strengthen our incentive program governance and oversight, leading to more effective outcomes and better service to the nation’s veterans,” she said.

But Democratic lawmakers said the work is less focused on efficiency and more focused on shedding government workers through active cuts and passive messaging.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., noted that VA leaders awarded recruiting incentives more than 20,000 times in 2024. Halfway through this year, that total is about 7,000. Recruitment incentives were awarded more than 6,000 times in 2024 but have been used about 1,000 times this year.

“It’s not that VA employees are less meritorious than they were [last year],” Ramirez noted. “No matter what VA employees do, they will never receive 3R awards, because the Trump Administration wants them to leave. They want every employee to be pushed out so they can decimate VA’s workforce and destroy it in order to justify privatizing the VA.”

VA officials expect to reduce the department’s workforce by roughly 30,000 employees this fiscal year, a move that has drawn the ire of union leaders and administration critics.

Union officials testified at the hearing that they are already seeing shortfalls in key areas like nursing and appointment scheduling, areas that will hurt veterans benefits.

VA leaders have disputed those assertions in recent months, insisting that cuts to the department bureaucracy can be done without impacting customer service. They said they are continuing to recruit for critical health care and benefits processing posts, and have dismissed concerns from critics regarding perceived emerging gaps in the workforce.

Senate leaders this week are expected to advance their plans for a $435 billion VA budget next fiscal year. The appropriations bill represents an $83 billion boost from Congress’ approved spending plan for VA in fiscal 2025, even with the planned staffing reductions.

The bill’s passage — by a 221-209 margin, with only five Democrats backing the measure — sends the national security budget debate over to the Senate, where appropriators still have not unveiled the parameters of their spending plans for next year.

The Defense Department is currently operating this fiscal year under a modified continuing resolution, with some additional funding for military programs and purchases. Lawmakers are hopeful that won’t happen again next year, but the slow pace of budget work thus far leaves only about six weeks of session work left before a possible partial government shutdown if the appropriations bills aren’t finalized.

The House spending plan was largely drafted before Pentagon leaders unveiled their detailed budgetary requests for fiscal 2026 just last month. President Donald Trump has touted that outline as a “$1 trillion defense budget,” but that total includes additional one-time funds approved by Congress as part of a separate reconciliation measure.

As such, the House plan for the base defense budget represents a small decrease over current fiscal year military spending, a point that Democrats and some Republican lawmakers have lamented.

But Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, praised the funding plan as “providing our men and women in uniform with the resources they need to keep America safe.”

The bill supports a 3.8% pay raise for servicemembers next year, matching the federal formula for the annual prescribed pay boost. It includes $2.6 billion for hypersonics programs and $13 billion for missile defense programs in support of Trump’s Golden Dome effort.

The measure sets aside $8.5 billion for 69 F-35 fighters, $3.8 billion for B-21 procurement, $2.7 billion for 15 KC-46s and $1.2 billion for four E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Another $37 billion would go to Navy shipbuilding efforts, including procurement of one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and two Virginia-class fast attack submarines.

Under the plan, the Defense Department civilian workforce would be cut by about 45,000 individuals at a savings of $3.6 billion, a provision that drew strong objections from Democratic lawmakers.

Critics also attacked the bill’s social issue provisions, including language prohibiting military health care facilities from providing abortion services, bans on transgender medical care and surgeries, and elimination of diversity and equity programs.

“These poison pill riders will not go unnoticed by our troops,” said Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., ranking member on the appropriations committee’s defense panel. “They will impact recruitment and retention.”

Passage of the defense budget bill was delayed for much of the week by unrelated legislative floor fights in the House, and could be complicated in the Senate by similar, broader fights over federal spending and program cuts.

House lawmakers are expected to shift focus in coming days to the annual defense authorization bill — legislation which sets Defense Department policy and spending priorities for the upcoming year, but does not actually appropriate the funds for those goals — but a full floor debate on that measure is unlikely to happen before the chamber’s August recess.