Last week, both Republicans and Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee expressed frustration that the administration still has not released in-depth budget plans for federal departments and agencies, despite the current fiscal year being halfway complete.

White House officials on May 2 released a “skinny” budget plan with broad funding goals for the year, but said a detailed plan will come later this summer. Appropriators said that limits much of their work, which typically takes six to nine months after the president’s budget outline.

The delays — coupled with ongoing congressional fights over the reconciliation budget bill — raise concerns about another possible partial government shutdown at the end of this fiscal year, Sept. 30. Lawmakers have only 10 weeks of legislative work scheduled between now and that deadline.

Monday, May 19

Tuesday, May 20

Wednesday, May 21

Thursday, May 22

The executive order, signed by Trump in an Oval Office ceremony, would also mandate reduced wait times for veterans health care appointments through expanded hours at VA facilities and relaxed rules for community care appointments.

The actions drew immediate praise from conservative groups and VA leadership, but White House officials did not provide specifics on how any of the proposals will become reality.

In a statement, they said the efforts “build on the historic reforms and achievements of President Trump’s first term, which transformed the Department of Veterans Affairs and expanded care and opportunities for our nation’s heroes.”

Here’s a closer look at each of the promised new initiatives:

The National Center for Warrior Independence

Trump’s plans for a series of offices focused on aiding homeless veterans would be crafted around the controversial West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center site, which has been the subject of litigation for years.

Under the new White House plan, Veterans Affairs officials would build “facilities and resources to help our veterans earn back their self-sufficiency” on the 388-acre site in California. Officials said the goal is to house up to 6,000 in-need veterans by 2028.

“The center will promote self-sufficiency through housing, substance abuse treatment, and support for productive work for the veterans housed there,” a White House fact sheet stated.

Department of Veterans Affairs officials are currently contesting a federal judge’s order to build more housing for homeless veterans on the site, which currently features a variety of private businesses and sports facilities for the University of California.

It is not clear whether the new plans will replace or run alongside any judicial orders. In a statement, VA Secretary Doug Collins criticized mismanagement of the site by past administrations and said the goal is to turn the area “into a beacon of hope and a destination for homeless veterans.”

Levels of homeless veterans across America dropped to their lowest level on record in 2024, but researchers still estimated there are nearly 33,000 veterans facing housing problems on any given night. About 10% are located in the Los Angeles area.

Manchester VA Medical Center

Currently, New Hampshire is the only state in the country without a full-service veterans medical center. Trump said he hopes to change that in the near future.

The executive order mandates “an action plan to expand services to support a full-service medical center in New Hampshire” by early November. White House officials did not say when the facility could be constructed and opened to patients.

During his presidential campaign last year, Trump had promised major upgrades to the Manchester VA Medical Center to dramatically expand its health care offerings and have it meet that full-service level. At a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing in February, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said the 75-year-old location needs significant upgrades as soon as possible.

“Twice over the past eight years, pipes have burst, temporarily closing parts of the medical center,” she said. “We’re talking months of rescheduled surgeries, the whole nine yards. It has been terrible.”

VA officials have already been working on a multi-year upgrade for the site, but will now be required to broaden those plans further.

White House officials did not offer a potential price tag for the hospital upgrade in New Hampshire or the homeless center in California. The administration has proposed a 4% increase in discretionary spending for VA in fiscal 2026 but would likely need additional funds to start work on new multi-billion-dollar constructions.

More VA firings?

Trump’s executive order also instructs the VA secretary to “take appropriate action against individuals who have committed misconduct, making full use of and in accordance with the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017.”

That legislation was a keystone of Trump’s first term in office but has led to numerous unfair labor practice lawsuits against the government. During President Joe Biden’s administration, VA officials stopped using many aspects of the law to punish and dismiss workers, saying the court challenges made it too costly and impractical.

But Trump — and conservative members of Congress — blamed Biden for failing to follow through on efforts to root out poor performers within the department. Trump’s order calls for VA leaders to investigate whether past court reversals can be overturned and back pay for problematic employees revoked.

Separately, Trump moved earlier this year to weaken federal union protections as part of broader efforts to reduce the size of the government workforce. Collins has also announced a goal of cutting up to 80,000 workers from VA payrolls in coming months to decrease the size of the department’s bureaucracy.

The executive order does not appear to be focused on those efforts, but increased firings could be used to help reach those goals.

Reduced wait times

Potentially the most impactful — and least defined — section of the executive order calls for increased options for VA medical care throughout the department.

The White House plan calls for “reduced wait times for Veterans Health Administration appointments through options such as expanded hours, weekend appointments, and virtual healthcare.” No further specifics were provided by officials.

Increasing weekend and evening hours at medical sites around the country would likely require more staffing at a time when VA leaders are looking at trimming employees, although Collins has repeatedly vowed not to cut back on medical specialists.

Wait times for appointments have been a point of contention among lawmakers for years. Past VA officials have said their waits are comparable or better than the private sector on average, but they have acknowledged that patients at individual sites or seeking speciality care can still face significant delays.

Conservative lawmakers have pushed for broader use of VA’s community care options, which allow veterans to visit private-sector offices at taxpayer expense. About 40% of all VA medical appointments are currently handled this way, but Republicans said many patients still face obstacles getting faster appointments because of unnecessary program restrictions.

In a statement, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said that “we know that there are areas where VA is falling short and services can be improved” and applauded the president’s vision for reforms.

“Long wait times for earned benefits aren’t cutting it, a lack of resources for servicemembers to transition into civilian life and ending veteran homelessness isn’t cutting it, denied referrals for health care and mental health support aren’t cutting it,” he said. “It’s time to change the way VA works.”

More details on reforms

Trump’s order also calls for the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs to “use vouchers to support homeless veterans.”

Such a program already exists, and the White House did not specify how the new program will differ from the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) grants that have drawn praise from advocates for its flexibility and reliability in recent years.

The White House also promised to pay for construction of the new facilities at least in part with “funds that may have been spent on housing or other services for illegal aliens.” No specifics were provided by the administration on whether such programs exist in VA today or if money from other agencies will be redirected to the department.

Collins is scheduled to testify before both the House Appropriations Committee and House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Thursday. Several aspects of Trump’s executive order are expected to be discussed at both appearances.

The $1.7 trillion “skinny budget” plan for next fiscal year, released by the White House on Friday, provides only broad spending outlines for federal departments and is expected to be followed by more detailed guidance in coming weeks.

White House officials said the fiscal plan “holds the line on total spending while providing unprecedented increases for defense and border security” while also reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy.

While major discretionary funding cuts are planned for agencies like the Department of Education (down 15%) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (down 44%), the White House plan calls for a $5.4 billion boost in VA program spending.

According to documents released by the Office of Budget and Management, about $2 billion of that increase would go toward accelerating the department’s electronic health records overhaul, a project that has been stalled for three years.

VA Secretary Doug Collins earlier this year announced plans to accelerate the rollout of the records system to 13 news sites in 2026, despite numerous cost overruns and system glitches.

Another $3.3 billion would be set aside for medical care improvements, although the specifics of those efforts have yet to be released.

Budget officials said the money would go toward ensuring that “the nation provides the world-class healthcare to America’s veterans that they deserve” and that “veterans who qualify for access to care with local community providers would be empowered to make the choice to see them.”

Expanding community care options — opportunities for veterans to seek private-sector care at taxpayers expense — was a major campaign promise for Trump. Collins has reiterated that focus in recent public interviews.

Planning documents also call for a $1.1 billion increase for programs aimed at ending veterans’ homelessness. Officials said the money would be earmarked for “rental assistance and augmenting VA’s existing case management.”

The spending plan estimates almost $500 million in savings from cuts to legacy information technology systems within the department, and another $37 million from diversity program cuts and planned staff reductions.

Officials also plan to shift about $50 billion in previously mandatory funding — set aside originally to pay for expenses related to toxic exposure injuries — into the discretionary budget next year.

Republican lawmakers have argued the move will make the funding more flexible and improve oversight into its use. Democratic lawmakers have countered that the move endangers long-term assurances that money will be available to care for those wounds of war.

The White House did not release its estimate for mandatory VA spending in fiscal 2026, which includes money for disability benefits, education payouts and certain medical expenses.

Veterans Affairs planners have seen regular budget increases annually for more than 20 years, even amid periodic congressional and White House efforts to reduce federal spending.

In fiscal 2001, the VA budget — both mandatory and discretionary — totaled just $45 billion. In 2011, it was about $125 billion. For the current fiscal year, the total tops $350 billion.

“What happens if you cut housekeeping staff, and it falls to us to get rooms cleaned?” she asked. “If dietary staff is cut, will nurses have to take on the responsibility to deliver meal trays? Who is going to handle scheduling to make sure a bed is available?

“All of those things affect our time and our ability to care for our veterans.”

Johnson, a seven-year employee of VA, was one of dozens of department nurses rallying outside the California hospital Wednesday to protest an array of moves by President Donald Trump’s administration that they say unnecessarily threatens the health of veterans and federal workers.

The event, planned by the National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United, or NNU, followed similar protests in New York, Chicago, North Carolina and other sites in recent weeks. More are scheduled through the end of the month.

“We’re not going to let them just bully the workers,” said Irma Westmoreland, an official at NNU and a VA nurse working in Georgia for the last 34 years. “We’re not going to let them do things that are illegal. We’re not going to let them just fire people for no reason.”

The rallies were originally conceived to protest looming staffing cuts across the department. VA Secretary Doug Collins has proposed trimming the workforce back to 2019 personnel levels, which would eliminate around 80,000 positions across the department.

VA officials have emphasized that those cuts will not impact services or benefits and said positions to be eliminated will not be ones which directly work with veterans or family members. In a statement, VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz dismissed the protests as fear-mongering and exaggeration.

“Positions that are critical to providing care to veterans — including nursing positions — will not be affected by efforts to make VA more efficient,” he said. “VA’s focus is on streamlining administrative functions, eliminating redundancies, and reducing managerial administration burdens without hurting veteran care.”

But nurses like Johnson and Westmoreland — and Democratic lawmakers critical of the plans — insist worker cuts of that scale will inevitably hurt veterans’ care, even if the effects are indirect.

“We’re already spread way too thin,” said Beverly Simpson, a VA nurse who works in West Virginia. “Any more cuts or responsibilities affects the quality of the health care that the veterans receive, and it makes so much more room for errors to occur.”

Officials from NNU have lamented VA’s nurse hiring practices for years, saying the department has not been aggressive enough in properly staffing hospitals to meet growing needs.

Now, they said, the problem is getting even worse.

Trump announced a federal hiring freeze earlier this year, but exempted some critical jobs like VA health care posts. However, NNU leaders have said the uncertainty over future job cuts has led many members to start seeking jobs elsewhere and is discouraging potential recruits.

VA leaders dispute those claims. They said of the 91,000 nursing jobs in the VA system, about 8,800 are unfilled now — a vacancy rate lower than most other major medical systems.

“There is a nationwide shortage of nurses that makes recruiting and retention difficult across the health care sector,” Kasperowicz said. “We continue to demonstrate the ability to attract nurses to VA, and we have hired more than 1,600 nurses in the first half of [fiscal] 2025.”

He also challenged union officials to provide details of personnel shortages to VA management, so those problems can be addressed. Union officials said past complaints about the problems have gone unanswered.

Further complicating the conflict are White House moves to scale back federal union protections. As those collective bargaining fights are being debated in court, the nurses’ rallies have grown to include a coalition of other federal workers, local union representatives and several veterans advocacy groups.

Department officials said final plans for VA jobs cuts are still being developed and reviewed, with an eye toward preventing problems in benefits and health care delivery.

In a social media post just a few days after the first nurses rally, Collins said that too many critics “view the VA as a federal jobs program” and are pushing instead to “maintain a dysfunctional status quo” at the department.

“Our shared goal needs to be making things better for veterans rather than protecting the department’s broken bureaucracy,” he said.

But those assurances have not won over the nurses protesting outside VA locations. Officials said they will keep holding the events until their concerns are heard, and until a sensible plan for VA staffing levels is made public.

“When the unions band together with the community, there isn’t anything we can’t accomplish,” Westmoreland said. “We’re going to stop this. We’re going to make sure that our VA is safe for our veterans.”

The moves, outlined in an internal memo signed by VA Secretary Doug Collins earlier this month, would shutter payroll offices at nearly 50 VA medical centers spread throughout the country, which employ around 600 staffers.

Their workload would instead be handled by the department’s Financial Services Center, centralizing finances for all department workers. Officials estimate the move will save the Veterans Health Administration about $13 million annually.

“Centralizing these payroll services will reduce administrative overhead, duplication errors, back pay settlements, fraud, and increase efficiencies,” Acting Chief Financial Officer Edward Murray wrote in the memo.

But it will also eliminate jobs for about 300 federal workers and force the relocation of 300 other positions. In a statement, VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz said the department has yet to finalize details about which employees will be given opportunities to move or accept other department jobs.

“Despite the fact that VA has a proven payroll system that processes paychecks for more than 200,000 VA employees, some 50 VA medical centers still maintain their own payroll support staff,” Kasperowicz said. “By consolidating payroll and payroll support for all employees under VA’s Financial Services Center, VA will save money, time and resources.

“This is exactly the kind of commonsense reform that should have been done years ago but is only happening now under President Trump and Secretary Collins.”

Collins has already set a public goal of trimming at least 15% — about 72,000 staffers — from the VA workforce in coming years as part of an effort to reduce waste and inefficiencies within the department.

In his memo, Murray also outlined plans to consolidate Veterans Family Member Program payouts into the new centralized payroll operations, producing another $31 million in savings annually.

Officials said they are confident that after restructuring, the new office will be able to handle the increased workload without any disruptions to employee paychecks or family member benefits.

In late March, problems with VA’s payroll software caused delays in overtime and specialty pays for about 10,000 workers. Lawmakers said the issues raised concerns about department systems and staffing levels, but VA leaders dismissed the problems as a one-time glitch.

Democratic lawmakers have been fiercely opposed to plans for large-scale employee cuts at the department, saying the moves are likely to hurt medical care and benefits delivery for veterans. Collins has pushed back on those accusations and promised a careful review of potential impacts before the workforce reductions.

Kasperowicz said an implementation plan for the payroll staffing overhaul is still being developed.

In a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins on Monday, leaders from the Community Home Lenders of America — a non-profit association of small and mid-sized community mortgage lenders — said that companies working with veterans have received “no detailed guidance, or in fact any information, to help them properly advise veterans families of imminent changes” with the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase (VASP) program.

On April 4, VA leaders announced the 10-month-old VASP program would stop accepting new enrollees on May 1. The effort was launched to purchase defaulted VA loans from outside mortgage servicers in an effort to allow financially strapped veterans to avoid forfeiture of their homes.

About 17,000 veterans received home loans with lower interest rates through the program, according to VA statistics. But the effort drew sharp criticism from conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who claimed it undermined the existing VA home loans program by providing too much financial aid to a select few veterans.

In a statement announcing the program changes, department officials said the decision to end VASP enrollment was made “because VA is not set up or intended to be a mortgage loan restructuring service.”

But in the last two weeks, Democratic lawmakers have attacked VA leaders for the move. A group of 22 congressional lawmakers wrote in a letter to Collins last week that “until better policy solutions are in place that provide for stronger underwriting, ending the VASP program abruptly will only harm veterans and their families.”

Monday’s letter from the Community Home Lenders of America echoed those concerns.

“The VA must elaborate in writing what the VASP deadline actually means,” group leaders wrote. “As just one example — if there is key information missing from an existing application VA should give the veteran and their servicer time to cure the fault if the application was submitted on time, rather than just deny the file.

“This is an area needing much more coordination between the VA and servicers.”

The nonprofit is asking for a 60-day transition deadline for individuals who may qualify for VASP but cannot get their enrollments finished before May 1.

But in an interview with Military Times on April 9, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., praised the decision to end the program and supported quick action on the change.

“The Veterans Home Loan Program has been around for a long time, and it is a golden opportunity for our veterans to get good lending rates for their homes so they can achieve the American dream,” he said “This program was putting that in danger.

“No one is going to be forced out, but this is a wise change.”

Congressional officials said in the last 10 months, VA officials have purchased more than $5.4 billion worth of home loans through the VASP program, with an average price of $320,000 per loan.

When the VASP program was launched in May 2024, VA officials estimated that as many as 40,000 veterans could benefit from the financial assistance. Community Home Lenders of America expressed concern that tens of thousands of veterans are still unaware of the potential benefits of the effort to their finances.

The report from the VA Inspector General’s Office comes after months of criticism from Republican lawmakers about how previous department leadership — under President Joe Biden — handled budgetary issues and public messaging surrounding veterans benefits in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.

“The Inspector General confirmed today what we always feared, that it appears that senior Biden VA officials repeatedly misled Congress on the reality of the situation [last year],” said Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

“This is incredibly concerning given that President Biden urged Congress to provide billions of additional taxpayer dollars to account for something that never even existed.”

Last September, Republican and Democratic lawmakers approved a nearly $3 billion stopgap spending bill for the VA after department officials had publicly warned benefit checks could be delayed or halted on Oct. 1 — the start of the new fiscal year — if additional cash reserves were not made available to the department.

VA leaders, including then-Secretary Denis McDonough and then-Under Secretary for Benefits Josh Jacobs, said through much of the summer that increased usage of department services had dipped cash balances in VA accounts below acceptable levels, and that the infusion of $3 billion more was needed to keep operations running without interruption.

But in late October, VA budget planners announced they had carried over roughly $5 billion in unspent funds related to benefits accounts from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025. Even without the emergency budget bill, the department would have held more than $2 billion in cash reserves, more than enough to cover demand.

Last fall, Bost and House Appropriations Committee’s veterans panel Chairman John Carter, R-Texas, accused department leaders of “misinforming Congress” and “inciting a panic among veterans about their benefits being delayed or cut.”

The inspector general’s review found that reports of benefits usage above budgetary projections were not accurate, and that department accountants failed to include some cash reserves in their predictions of a shortfall.

“From March through September 2024, the Veterans Benefits Administration continued to emphasize the risk to veterans in its communications to Congress, even though the data increasingly suggested there might actually be less need for supplemental funding as time went on,” the report stated.

“VBA officials ultimately justified the supplemental funding request as a precautionary measure to avoid potential payment delays to veterans …va the inspector general found that improvements in financial oversight, reporting accuracy, and communication processes would have provided greater clarity and may have obviated the need for the supplemental funding request.”

The report comes as the new leadership at VA under President Donald Trump have emphasized the need for efficiency and accountability in department spending, with a goal of cutting workers and contracts without compromising services.

Recommendations in the report point to stronger monthly fiscal reviews to better analyze and identify available funds, to avoid similar false predictions in the future.

In response to the watchdog findings, current VA leadership — which was not involved in the budgetary issues last year — said they are looking at reforms in the accounting process. Bost said his committee will continue to look into the reasons for the budgeting problems and “ensure that those who may have misled Congress are held accountable for their actions.”

The Senate passed a six-month continuing resolution, or temporary spending bill Friday, after Congress failed to reach a budget deal before a midnight deadline. The bill includes an extra $6 billion for the military, but otherwise freezes spending at the last fiscal year’s levels, or around $825 billion.

Considering Congress didn’t pass a supplemental defense bill, as it has in recent years for Ukraine, that amounts to a 10.6% drop in military spending, according to data provided by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The massive cut comes at a bizarre moment for Pentagon spending, which is being pushed in multiple directions by multiple parts of the government.

On one side are those pushing to cut, or at least reallocate, parts of that budget. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he plans to fire 5% to 8% of the civilian workforce and also shift around $50 billion in future funding requests toward his priorities. Add to that the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk’s attempt to slash the federal government, which is already identifying cuts to defense spending.

On the other end are officials calling for massive increases to the defense budget. Senate Republicans, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, want to add $150 billion to the military starting in fiscal 2026 and are in negotiations to do so. The White House, meanwhile, has pledged to surge America’s sluggish shipbuilding industry and build a “golden dome” missile defense system so ambitious that a general last week likened its goals to the Manhattan Project.

“It’s pushing on the gas with one foot and the brakes with two feet,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, an expert on defense spending at the American Enterprise Institute.

Temporary spending bills, such as the one passed Friday, usually stunt the military’s growth, halting new programs and production lines. This one is different. In order to limit the damage to the military, the bill allows such flexibility for weapons programs included in the House and Senate’s proposed defense spending bills, which are now otherwise obsolete.

Congressional aides said these exceptions will help the Pentagon avoid the whiplash involved in these short-term spending bills, which have become a chronic issue as Congress fails to pass budgets on time.

Military leaders were less sanguine.

“We are seeing an enormous amount of threats emerging every single year, and it is very hard to get after those threats when you have to wait two to four years to get the budget,” said Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations, in a Senate hearing last week.

Appearing alongside him, the vice chief of naval operations argued that the lack of a full budget will further delay maintenance for America’s warships, one-fifth of which are on track to miss their schedules.

“It’ll certainly be a setback,” said Adm. James Kilby.

The Trump administration has promised a reindustrialization of America, and in response started slapping tariffs on countries from China to Canada to members of the European Union. Those last two include 25% levies on steel and aluminum, which will likely increase costs for American arms makers and, by extension, the Pentagon.

That said, analysts who study defense spending said it was still too early to tell how much those costs will grow.

“It’s unmeasurable” at this point, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

A massive surge in the military’s budget, like Wicker is calling for, could help limit the issues caused by the continuing resolution’s sudden drop in spending, Montgomery argued. But military leaders would need to know how much money is coming and how it will be divided among the services.

Those factors haven’t yet been decided in Congress, and without answers, the Pentagon is planning its future budgets without knowing how much money it will have or what programs it might need to sacrifice.

“It’s pretty devastating,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Air Force’s acting head of space acquisition and integration.

The drop in funding is one problem, Purdy said, speaking with reporters last week. But a much bigger one is the stiff rules about how the military can spend its money, forced by temporary spending bills like this one.

The continuing resolution allots more authority than usual to the Pentagon, including the ability to carry over more money from the previous fiscal year without letting it expire. It also allows more flexibility for the administration to move around funds without Congress’ approval.

But the extent to which that freedom will help is not yet clear, leaving officials like Purdy confused and discouraged.

“If we’re not allowed to move money where we need to move with congressional approvals … we’re basically just going to run off a cliff on many programs, and we’re going to be all-stop across the board,” he said. “It’s going to be kind of a disaster.”

The new spending rules, spelled out in a March 5 memorandum signed by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Darin Selnick, came a week after President Donald Trump issued a Feb. 26 executive order outlining government cost-saving initiatives, including some that targeted federal workers’ spending habits.

“DOD civilian employees must cancel all future non-exempted official travel reservations, and those currently on non-exempted travel must return to their respective permanent duty stations as soon as feasible,” the DOD memo read.

The spending limit for the government-issued travel cards of federal civilian employees was officially reduced to $1.00, per the instructions.

The memo exempts DOD civilian employee travel that directly supports military operations or a permanent change in station.

Trump’s executive order — entitled “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Cost Efficiency Initiative” — called for a “transformation in federal spending” by cutting costs and harnessing the power of the increasingly controversial DOGE agency to do the heavy lifting.

Two tenets of the executive order, “non-essential travel justification” and “credit card freeze,” provided more detailed instructions.

Agencies will be tasked with installing a technological system in which approvals for federally funded travel for “conferences and other non-essential purposes” are logged. Employees will not be allowed to travel unless the head of that agency submits a written justification through the system.

Federal employees’ credit cards will also be frozen for 30 days, save for credit cards tied to disaster relief or natural disaster response benefit assistance.

Elon Musk, the Trump-appointed special government employee who leads DOGE and is the CEO of automotive company Tesla, has faced criticism for the substantial firings his agency has made in the name of cost savings. Cuts have impacted a long list of federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of Energy, the National Parks Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is planning to cut 80,000 employees.

DOGE has also received backlash for emails it sent out requiring federal employees, including DOD civilians, to reply with a detailed list of their professional accomplishments for the week in an attempt to assess productivity.

That’s because the proposal — which holds government spending at last fiscal year’s levels, with a few adjustments — would provide less funding for military projects than Pentagon leaders had hoped for this fiscal year and dump the controversial Toxic Exposures Fund for the VA next year. Democrats immediately decried the proposal as unworkable and unfair.

“This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

“Veterans will suffer with higher housing costs, poorer quality of health care at the VA, and no advance funding for treatment from exposure to toxic chemicals.”

The funding bill — or an alternative spending package — must be approved by lawmakers before midnight Friday to prevent a partial government shutdown. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump took to social media to urge support for the measure, calling it “a very good funding bill” that will sustain critical government programs until next fall.

“Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the country’s ‘financial house’ in order,” Trump wrote.

House lawmakers are hoping to advance the measure Tuesday night. Republicans hold the majority in both the House and the Senate, but they will need Democratic support in the upper chamber to quickly pass the funding bill.

That may be difficult, given the numerous conservative priorities packed into the legislation.

The bill cuts overall nondefense spending by $13 billion this fiscal year while increasing defense spending by $6 billion.

That would bring total defense spending for this fiscal year to roughly $847 billion, still short of the $850 billion-plus that defense planners had hoped for in fiscal 2025. Officials have warned the smaller number will mean delays in some program starts and new equipment purchases, although specifics will still need to be finalized after a budget deal is passed.

The extra $6 billion for VA is also about $600 million less than what the last administration predicted would be needed to cover shortfalls within department operations, largely due to increased medical care and benefits among veterans.

VA Secretary Doug Collins has not weighed in with new budget estimates since taking office last month, but he has touted nearly $1 billion in savings from cutting contracts in recent weeks. That money could offset some of the budget gaps.

So far, Democrats have focused their concerns for VA funding on the Toxic Exposure Fund, a target of Republican lawmakers in recent years.

The account was created after passage of the 2022 PACT Act as a way to ensure that money would be available to cover the costs associated with expanded benefits for illnesses linked to military toxic exposures, like burn pit smoke and Agent Orange water contamination.

Republicans have charged that the account is essentially a slush fund without any oversight, and they pushed to move that money back into the standard VA budgeting process. However, such a move would create complications for how nondefense spending is calculated, leading to cuts in other programs and no guaranteed funding account for the toxic exposure benefits.

Under the Republican plan, the Toxic Exposures Fund would not be affected in fiscal 2025 but would be dropped in fiscal 2026. Lawmakers could add the roughly $23 billion in advance money planned for the fund next year into other parts of the budget in later fiscal legislation.

But debate over those future issues won’t come until later. Lawmakers have only four days left before the possibility of a government shutdown, which could halt paychecks for military members and furlough hundreds of thousands of employees in the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.