The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s plan to pay for a
bill to extend Agent Orange disability benefits to 90,000 “blue water” Navy
veterans of the Vietnam War — by raising funding fees under the Department of
Veterans Affairs guaranty home loan program — will not continue to shield all
disabled veterans from a funding fee, as the committee claimed last month as it
cleared the bill for consideration of the full House.
The charge is made by “G2” Varrato II, a Phoenix Realtor,
Air Force retiree, and director of the Veterans Association for Real Estate
Professionals (VAREP) for the state of Arizona. The committee does not dispute
Varrato’s argument that veterans with disabilities rated below 100 percent
would see their waiver of a VA loan funding fee disappear if they use their
benefit on mortgages that exceed the Freddie Mac conforming loan limit, a
program expansion the committee bill allows.
Every major veteran service organization publicly endorsed
the committee’s amended version of the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act (HR
299), which includes a new strategy to cover the bill’s $1 billion estimated
cost for expanding Agent Orange-related benefits by charging slightly higher VA
home loan funding fees and making other changes to the VA loan program.
It’s unclear now whether advocacy groups understood that
certain disabled veterans, those with VA ratings below 100 percent, would be
hit with their first VA home loan funding fees ever if they were to take
advantage of the jumbo long feature.
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