A sweeping veterans benefits package stalled amid a bitter fight over disability compensation has the support of more than 70% of respondents to a new nationwide survey, even as those same respondents remain sharply divided over one of the bill’s most controversial provisions.
The new Mission Roll Call survey, shared exclusively with Military.com ahead of its public release, found 70.5% of respondents supported the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, or TCAVA, after receiving additional information about the legislation.
That’s up sharply from 55.3% before respondents reviewed information about the bill. Meanwhile, the percentage saying they needed more information fell from 27.1% to 12.7%.
The findings offer a new look at what veterans and their families think about one of the most consequential, and contentious, pieces of veterans legislation before Congress.
But they also reveal something more complicated: Support for TCAVA does not necessarily mean support for everything inside it.
Section 108, which would change how the Department of Veterans Affairs handles future disability ratings for tinnitus and sleep apnea, remains deeply divisive.
Only 29.8% of respondents supported Section 108 as proposed. Another 31.3% opposed changing future ratings, while 16.1% said they could accept changes but not if they were being used to pay for other benefits.
Yet even among respondents opposed to the Section 108 rating changes, 52.3% still supported TCAVA overall.
That distinction, Mission Roll Call CEO Jim Whaley told Military.com in an exclusive interview, may be getting lost in the increasingly heated debate surrounding the legislation.
I think once they saw it in totality, and they learned about the 60-plus bills and the benefits they have, then there was a weight and balance kind of process that went in people’s minds, Whaley said.
Support Grew as Respondents Learned More
Mission Roll Call surveyed 1,046 respondents nationwide between Aug. 14 and Sept. 8, with participants coming from all 50 states. Of those respondents, 87.5% identified as veterans.
Unlike a traditional single-pass survey, respondents were first asked about TCAVA and then shown four informational explainers addressing the legislation, including Section 108, before answering additional questions.
Support subsequently climbed more than 15 percentage points. Whaley said the results largely validate an earlier Mission Roll Call survey that found 71% support for TCAVA.
The first survey, I was surprised that it was so overwhelmingly 71% of veterans in strong support of TCAVA, Whaley said. The second one was to just expand that survey a little bit, validate what we saw the first time.
Whaley attributed the result in part to respondents having more information available to them. “I think when veterans receive unbiased, unfiltered information, they make great decisions,” he said.
Mission Roll Call is not a membership organization, a distinction Whaley argues allows it to reach veterans and military families beyond the traditional veterans service organization structure.
He said the organization also gathers feedback through livestreamed town halls, surveys, community interactions and symposiums around the country.
Section 108 Remains the Fault Line
The polling makes clear, however, that informing respondents about TCAVA did not eliminate concerns surrounding Section 108.
The provision has become the center of an increasingly public dispute among veterans organizations and lawmakers over whether future VA disability compensation should be altered as part of the effort to pay for expanded veterans benefits.
Whaley acknowledged that Section 108 has changed the broader debate. “There was so much coverage and so much social media about 108. It scared a lot of people, and so I think that changed the dynamic of the discussion,” he said.
But Mission Roll Call’s findings suggest respondents distinguish between their concerns about that provision and their views of the broader legislation.
Asked what Congress should do if Section 108 prevents TCAVA from moving forward, only 6.2% said lawmakers should abandon TCAVA altogether.
Twenty-nine percent favored passing the entire package with Section 108 intact. Another 22.3% favored removing or modifying Section 108 and finding another funding mechanism, while 21.9% wanted Congress to advance broadly supported provisions while continuing to negotiate Section 108 separately.
And when respondents were asked more directly whether Congress should move broadly supported provisions if doing so could get some benefits enacted sooner, 58.9% said yes.
That may be one of the survey’s clearest messages to lawmakers: The dispute over Section 108 does not necessarily amount to a rejection of TCAVA.
What Veterans Want Most
The survey also asked respondents to identify as many as three of their highest priorities within the package. At the top was protecting disability compensation, selected by 55.4%.
The Major Richard Star Act, which would allow certain combat-injured veterans to receive both their military retirement pay and VA disability compensation without an offset, followed at 45.1%.
Mental health and suicide prevention ranked third at 38.1%, followed by survivor benefits at 36%, community care at 31.2% and caregiver support at 25.2%.
Respondents also identified the fight over how to pay for expanded benefits as the largest obstacle to passing TCAVA.
Twenty-six percent blamed disagreement over funding, while 23.8% cited partisan disagreement and 16.3% pointed specifically to Section 108.
Just 10.1% said the problem was disagreement over whether veterans should receive the benefits themselves.
Those findings point toward a debate that increasingly appears to be less about whether Congress should expand veterans benefits than about how it should pay for them.
The Richard Star Act Question
The survey also provides new insight into another long-running fight on Capitol Hill: the Major Richard Star Act. Despite broad bipartisan support, the legislation has repeatedly failed to become law.
Mission Roll Call’s results suggest many respondents care more about getting concurrent receipt enacted than about the legislative vehicle Congress uses to accomplish it.
Only 19.7% said lawmakers should continue pursuing the Richard Star Act solely as a standalone measure.
By comparison, 29.5% favored including it in a larger veterans package if that offered the best chance of enactment, while 27.7% supported whichever legislative strategy was most likely to achieve concurrent receipt.
A Debate That Has Become Personal
Whaley also expressed concern about something the survey itself can’t measure: the increasingly bitter fight among organizations that otherwise share the goal of supporting veterans.
“I think what’s unfortunate in this whole process is how personal it’s gotten between some of the organizations,” Whaley said. “At the end of the day, we’re all veterans.”
The disagreement could have consequences beyond TCAVA, he said.
If one organization is saying one thing and another one is saying another, it’s hard to get a synergy on important issues with Congress, Whaley said. There’s a number of issues that already divide this country. Veteran issues shouldn’t be one of them.
He also argued that debates over veterans’ benefits ultimately extend beyond the veteran population.
“Veterans’ issues are active duty issues, just active duty issues in waiting,” Whaley said, connecting perceptions of how veterans are treated after service with recruiting and public willingness to recommend military service.
For Whaley, the new survey ultimately reinforces Mission Roll Call’s argument that lawmakers should listen to veterans and their families as Congress decides what happens next.
“The vast majority of veterans are in strong support, not lukewarm support. Strong support,” he said.
And regardless of what happens to TCAVA, Whaley said veterans organizations will need to work together again.
His hope, he said, is that when the debate ends, organizations “put our shoulders together and work together on important legislation moving forward for the benefit of the majority of veterans in this country.”
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