Sen. Gallego pushes bill to give combat-disabled veterans more access to retirement benefits

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego is pushing legislation to ensure combat veterans get access to more benefits.

Gallego is supporting a bipartisan bill called the Major Richard Star Act. It would allow veterans who served for fewer than 20 years but are combat-disabled to receive both full retirement pay and disability compensation.

Gallego bashed the senators who claim the bill is too expensive but are prepared to vote in favor of spending many billions more on funding the Department of Homeland Security and the war in Iran.

“When that veteran comes back injured from Iran, forced to retire and then going to get VA benefits and try to also have their retirement benefits, there’s going to be that same senator who said, ‘You know what? Too expensive,’” Gallego told a room full of veterans in Phoenix on Thursday.

He called out GOP Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson in particular for opposing the bill.

The act would cost an estimated $1 billion a year and benefit roughly 50,000 veterans across the country.

Gallego hopes to attach the bill to the funding request for DHS when the budget item comes up for a vote in the Senate. He urged veterans in other states to reach out to their senators and encourage their support of the legislation.

Veteran Steven Jackson was severely injured in a Humvee rollover in Iraq in 2008. He was forced to medically retire from the military before serving 20 years. Because of that, he doesn’t receive full retirement pay.

“It’d be amazing to be able to retire and not have to try to work, be able to spend time with my wife and my kids, and I mean the back pay that I would have gotten for 15 years of $700 or $1,400 would be life-changing,” he said.