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Lawmakers and advocates characterized the government shutdown and the partisan politics fueling it as “disastrous” for retired and active-duty service members, who they said rely on food assistance and medical coverage provisions at risk amid the funding lapse.
“This shutdown is really disastrous for our current military, and it’s not just because of the financial worry, which is very high,” Kathy Roth-Douquet, co-founder and CEO of Blue Star Families, told NewsNation’s Washington Bureau Chief Mike Viquiera on Thursday at The Hill’s “Veteran Voices Summit.”
Though veterans’ issues enjoy broad bipartisan support, lawmakers and advocates said the Trump administration’s funding cuts and the shutdown disproportionately impacted service members.
“We can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot on this kind of stuff,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), a former Air Force officer, said. “We have to take care of our veterans and cannot be partisan about this.”
Around 1.2 million veterans in the U.S. live in households that participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance to low-income families.
SNAP’s funding was set to lapse on Nov. 1, though lawmakers introduced legislation to try to fund the program amid the government shutdown. Following a federal judge’s ruling, the administration said it would partially fund the program in November.
Roth-Douquet said the number of military members turning to food banks during the shutdown was “surging” because many members have spouses who are federal government workers — meaning their household income was “down one paycheck” during the shutdown.
“But more importantly, we are so vital in the military to our civilian leadership, and when our civilian leadership doesn’t seem like they can do their basic job, it undermines our confidence in serving,” she said. She said some veterans no longer wanted to recommend military service to others due to the political tumult.
Virginia Burger, a senior defense policy analyst for the Project on Government Oversight and a former Marine Corps member, said the “politicization of the military” through measures such as the federal government’s deployment of the National Guard in recent months has affected veterans’ morale.
“If the military loses credibility, that hurts veterans, right?” Burger said. “It hurts our own ability, if the reputation of the organization we are associated with is discolored, it’s going to have a negative impact on us.”
Abraham Kamarck, CEO of True Made Foods, also pointed to how more general policies from the administration were affecting veterans. Kamarck, a Navy veteran, said that economic upheaval caused by President Trump’s tariffs caused him to raise his products’ prices twice this year.
“Anything that brings uncertainty and chaos into the business world is bad,” he said. “We want a steady hand on the tiller.”
Increasing health care access for veterans emerged as a central issue during the summit, with several speakers pointing to veterans’ increased risk for suicide and mental health issues.
“We need to make sure that we continue to advance the use of the technologies available to provide the health care and the administrative services that the veterans today will be comfortable with and good at,” Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), a former three-star Marine general, said.
But Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) worried that federal cuts to Medicaid, a federal insurance program, would restrict veterans’ healthcare access. Around 1.6 million veterans are enrolled in Medicaid.
Hundreds of thousands of veterans also use Affordable Care Act premium tax credits to afford health care coverage. The credits sit at the center of Congress’s federal funding fight, with Democrats insisting on their renewal and Republicans pushing it off until a temporary funding resolution is reached.
“I worry that irreparable damage will be done to…healthcare for our veterans,” Takano told NewsNation national anchor Natasha Zouves.
The shutdown has also put several bipartisan bills introduced by lawmakers to address issues faced by veterans on hold, including ones that would increase veterans’ healthcare options and help them transition out of military service into different career fields.
One of the bills that likely won’t move until the government shutdown ends is legislation that would allow the families of Area 51 veterans — former service members affected by radiation at a Nevada nuclear testing site — to access healthcare benefits.
Dave Crete, one of the Area 51 veterans, came to D.C. despite the government shutdown hoping to convince members of Congress and the White House to provide healthcare for his family. Crete said he was hoping to talk to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) during his visit.
“I pray to God somebody can help connect the dots, and I can sit there and say, ‘Sir, be a hero to a few folks,’” he said.
