Two Sponsors, Same Playbook, Different Side
One called it "dishonest and shameless" in 2023. The other fought it in 2014. Now they're both cosponsoring it.
AI-generated image: an antique ledger book with military medals and coins on one page, a torn dollar bill and folded flag on the other.
The Gist
Sen. Jerry Moran is the lead Senate sponsor of H.R. 9237’s companion bill, S. 4744, which funds the Major Richard Star Act by cutting future sleep apnea and tinnitus ratings.
In 2013, Congress cut military retiree COLA by 1% as a budget offset. Moran’s own office says he opposed it.
In 2014, Moran sponsored a bill to reverse that cut, saying Congress shouldn’t “balance our budget on the backs of our veterans.”
Rep. Jennifer Kiggans personally led 55 House Republicans in a 2023 letter calling the mere suggestion of a VA funding tradeoff “dishonest and shameless.” She’s now a cosponsor of H.R. 9237, which contains an actual one, written into the bill’s text.
Neither is a new opinion of mine. Both are their own words, on the record, twelve and three years apart.
He Fought This Fight Before. Now He’s Running the Other Side.
Last week I wrote about the arithmetic nobody in Congress wants to say out loud: the Pentagon gets $153.3 billion with no offset, and veterans get a bill that cuts future sleep apnea and tinnitus ratings to pay for the Star Act. That piece was about the math. This one is about two names on the bill, and what they said the last time Congress tried this exact move.
Start with Jerry Moran. He chairs Senate Veterans’ Affairs. He’s the lead Senate sponsor of S. 4744, H.R. 9237’s companion bill, the one Bost said he and Moran “worked hard” to make “paid-for.”
In December 2013, Congress cut military retiree COLA by one percent a year as a budget offset, the Bipartisan Budget Act. Moran’s own Senate office, in a later press release, states plainly that he opposed it. The American Legion called it what it was at the time: retirees “singled out to make up the shortfalls in the DoD budget.”
Two months later, Congress partly reversed the cut. Moran wasn’t satisfied. His office’s statement on the fix: “Although the Omnibus corrected some of the reductions irresponsibly included in the budget agreement, the measure does not protect all veterans and their families from cuts to their COLA benefits.” He sponsored the Keeping Our Promise to Our Military Heroes Act to finish the job.
That’s the same Jerry Moran, twelve years later, as the lead Senate sponsor of a bill that funds one group of veterans by cutting future ratings for another. I’m not going to tell you that’s hypocrisy. I’m telling you it’s the same man, the same mechanism, opposite side, and you should know that before September.
Now Jennifer Kiggans. In May 2023, during the fight over the Limit, Save, Grow Act, she personally led 55 House Republicans in a letter to VA Secretary McDonough. Her word for the claim that the bill risked a 22% cut to VA funding: “dishonest and shameless.” Her letter’s own language: “nowhere in this bill is it indicated that the VA budget would be cut.” She voted YEA on that bill, which capped topline discretionary spending without an explicit VA exemption. PolitiFact later rated a nearly identical claim from Rep. Mike Bost “Mostly False,” citing the same OMB estimate Kiggans’s letter dismissed.
Whatever you think of that argument in 2023, notice what’s different in 2026. Kiggans is now a cosponsor of H.R. 9237, a bill that doesn’t require anyone to infer a possible funding effect from a topline cap. Section 108 says, in the bill’s own text, that future tinnitus and sleep apnea claimants’ ratings get rewritten to help pay for the Star Act. In 2023, even the suggestion that a bill might cost veterans something was “dishonest and shameless.” In 2026, she’s cosponsoring one that does it on the page.
I’ll leave you to decide what to call that. I’m just telling you what they said, and when, and pointing you at their own words to check it yourself.
The bill comes back around September, per Speaker Johnson’s own timeline. When it does, these are two of the names that will be asking for your vote of confidence on “paid-for.” Now you know what they said the last time this fight happened.
About This Publication
Tbird’s Quiet Fight is independent investigative journalism focused on VA policy, veteran benefits, and government accountability. Published by the founder of HadIt.com, one of the oldest veteran-run VA claims communities online (est. 1997).
Tips and sources: ipersist@tbirdsquietfight.com (encrypted options available on request)
I use AI as a research and editing assistant, the same way I’d use a good reference book or a sharp editor. Every word published here is reviewed, verified, and approved by me. The perspective, accuracy, and editorial decisions are mine.
Theresa “Tbird” Aldrich, Navy veteran (VAQ-34, 1983-1990), Investigative Journalist, TbirdsQuietFight.com, Founder of HadIt.com | Advisory Board Member, Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI).