Appropriators back funding boost for VA next year - if they can pass a budget

Federal Times: Congressional appropriators are moving a pair of plans to give the Department of Veterans Affairs a healthy boost in fiscal 2017, but whether either will ever become a reality remains in doubt.

On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s panel on VA and military construction advanced a $177.4 billion spending plan for veterans programs in fiscal 2017, an increase of almost 9 percent from fiscal 2016 that nearly matches the White House budget request for those efforts.

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