Statement on Signing a
Veterans Benefits Bill
I
have today signed into law S. 11, which will provide a cost-of-living increase
for beneficiaries of veterans' compensation and Dependency and Indemnity
Compensation (DIC), grant judicial review of veterans' claims, and make a
number of improvements in other veterans' benefit programs, including
vocational rehabilitation, life insurance, disability pension, health care, and
memorial affairs.
This
Act provides a 4.1 percent cost-of-living increase in the compensation paid to
the nearly 2.2 million Armed Forces veterans with service-connected
disabilities. In addition, it will provide the same percentage increase in the
payments to approximately 323,000 surviving spouses and dependents of veterans
whose deaths were service-connected. These increases will become effective on
I
must note, however, that several provisions of the Act raise serious
constitutional questions. However, I do not believe these particular
constitutional difficulties impair the fulfillment of the bill's principal
objectives.
The
Act purports to require the budget submissions of the newly created Court of
Veterans' Appeals to be included in the President's budget ``without review
within the Executive branch.'' This provision is unconstitutional because it
interferes with the constitutional power of the President to recommend to the
Congress ``such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.''
The
Act also purports to require the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
to, among other things, ``set aside'' statutes that it finds to be arbitrary
and capricious. The reference to ``statute'' appears to have been included by
mistake, and I urge the Congress to correct this unconstitutional delegation of
legislative power to the judiciary.
Ronald
Reagan
The
White House,
Note: S. 11, approved
November 18, was assigned Public Law No. 100 - 687.