WASHINGTON — U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough expressed confidence the Senate has enough votes to pass a bill to provide health care and benefits to 3.5 million veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, even after Republicans stalled the legislation.
Forty-one Republican senators switched tactics and moved to force a debate on amendments that would reduce future mandatory spending in the bill. The majority of those lawmakers had supported an essentially identical version of the bill last month.
“There’s been one change since then” on “something completely unrelated to this issue,” McDonough said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “So if everybody does what they did before, this has 84 votes, so I think they should just get on with it. Have the vote.”
