The House Passed the Major Richard Star Act 392 to 18, Ending the Wounded Veterans Tax

The House of Representatives voted 392 to 18 on Thursday to pass the Major Richard Star Act, a bill six years in the making that ends what veterans' advocates call the wounded veterans tax. The roll call, recorded at 10:59 a.m., drew yes votes from 210 Democrats, 181 Republicans and one independent. All 18 no votes came from Republicans.

The bill, H.R. 2102, eliminates a dollar-for-dollar offset in current law. Veterans who are medically retired because of combat injuries before completing 20 years of service lose a dollar of military retirement pay for every dollar of VA disability compensation they receive. Veterans who serve the full 20 years collect both in full. The House Veterans' Affairs Committee puts the number affected at roughly 59,000 medically retired, combat-injured veterans, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated last month that their combined pay would rise by an average of about $1,450 a month if the bill becomes law.

The bill carries the name of Major Richard Star, a U.S. Army Reserve soldier who advocated for the fix publicly while battling cancer. He died on February 13, 2021, at age 51, before it passed. Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida first introduced the bill in 2020, and he and Rep. Raul Ruiz of California have reintroduced it in every Congress since. "Six years ago, Major Star asked Congress to fix this. He died before we could," said Rep. Mark Takano, the ranking Democrat on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. "Today the House did what a bipartisan majority has wanted to do for years."

Getting the bill to the floor took the House's rarely used escape hatch. After years in which the measure piled up more than 330 cosponsors without a vote, Takano filed a discharge petition in May to force one, and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina provided the 218th signature in September. Even Thursday's path was split: the rule bringing the bill up passed 271 to 135 earlier in the morning, with 135 Republicans voting against considering a bill that then passed with 181 Republican votes.

Thursday's vote was also the second act of a two-day fight. On Wednesday, Veterans Day, the House passed a rival package, the Take Care of America's Veterans Act, by voice vote. That bill folds a lesser version of the Star Act into more than 60 veterans provisions, and Disabled American Veterans and other groups opposed it over its funding structure and the cuts and caps it carries. Democrats called Wednesday's maneuver treachery, in Government Executive's account, and veterans organizations called it cowardly. Both bills now sit in front of the Senate.

The Star Act's backers span the veterans world: the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, The American Legion, the Wounded Warrior Project and dozens of other service organizations. "This is a historic victory for combat-wounded veterans and their families," Ruiz said. "It ends the wounded veteran tax, so combat-injured veterans receive both the retirement pay and the disability compensation they earned. Now the Senate must act."

Nothing changes in anyone's pay yet. The Senate companion bill, S. 1032, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut with 79 cosponsors, still awaits action, and the measure needs Senate passage and the president's signature before the offset actually ends. What Thursday settled is the House's position, on the record, by a margin of 374 votes: the tax is done, if the Senate agrees.