Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators Thursday that he supports the Maj. Richard Star Act, a long-stalled bill that would end a dollar-for-dollar pay offset that costs roughly 54,000 combat-wounded veterans thousands of dollars a year in lost income.
Hegseth made the statement during a hearing on the Defense Department's $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 budget request, Military Times reported. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who is the bill's lead sponsor, pressed Hegseth on whether the Pentagon would get behind the legislation.
Hegseth's answer was direct:
"As I have said in the past to other organizations, we support the Richard Star Act."
That single sentence may matter more than a decade of floor speeches. The bill already claims 79 Senate co-sponsors and 323 House members, yet it has failed to reach a vote, blocked not by opposition to its purpose but by a fight over how to pay for it. A public endorsement from the sitting defense secretary adds executive-branch weight that advocates have lacked.
The problem dates to 2004. That year, Congress allowed veterans who served at least 20 years and earned a VA disability rating of 50 percent or higher to collect both their military retirement pay and their VA disability compensation at the same time. Before that change, every dollar of VA disability money reduced retirement pay by a dollar, a straight offset.
But the 2004 fix left out a specific group: service members who were medically retired before reaching 20 years because of combat injuries. These veterans, many of them wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, still face the old dollar-for-dollar reduction. The Maj. Richard Star Act would close that gap, giving eligible combat-disabled retirees full concurrent receipt of both benefits.
The bill is named for Army Reserve Maj. Richard Star, who died in 2021 from lung cancer linked to burn pit exposure in Iraq and Afghanistan. His case became a rallying point for veterans groups pressing Congress to act.
Hegseth has faced sustained political opposition from congressional Democrats on other fronts, including impeachment articles filed by House Democrats that had no realistic path to passage. His backing of the Star Act puts him on the same side as Blumenthal, an unusual alignment that underscores how broadly the bill's purpose is supported across party lines.
If the policy is popular and the co-sponsor count is overwhelming, why hasn't the bill passed? The answer is money, and a disagreement over how much money.
Sen. Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican, objected in March when Blumenthal called for a Senate floor vote. Johnson said the legislation would cost more than $70 billion over the first 10 years of enactment.
That $70 billion figure, however, represents the estimated price tag for eliminating the offset for all 250,000 military medical retirees, a far broader population than the Star Act actually covers. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee has said the bill applies only to medical retirees eligible for Combat Related Special Compensation, a narrower group. Under those requirements, the committee estimates the cost at $11 billion over 10 years.
The gap between $70 billion and $11 billion is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a bill that looks unaffordable and one that looks manageable, especially set against a defense budget request of $1.5 trillion for a single fiscal year. Current congressional rules require lawmakers to identify an offset or funding mechanism to cover the cost, and that procedural hurdle has stalled the legislation despite its bipartisan backing.
Critics of the delay have a point. Democrats have spent considerable energy targeting Hegseth over foreign policy disputes, yet the same Congress cannot find a way to fund a benefit for 54,000 combat-wounded veterans. The contrast in priorities is hard to miss.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars has offered a concrete solution. The VFW proposed using the federal Military Retirement Fund, which holds more than $1.7 trillion in assets, to finance the concurrent receipt payments. The fund already exists to pay military retired pay, so the proposal would essentially tap an existing pot rather than requiring new appropriations or tax increases.
Whether that mechanism satisfies congressional budget scorekeepers remains an open question. But it gives lawmakers a path forward if they want one.
Both the VFW and Disabled American Veterans have made the Star Act a top legislative priority. The breadth of support, from major veterans organizations, a supermajority of both chambers, and now the defense secretary, makes the continued failure to pass the bill harder to explain with each session.
Hegseth's tenure at the Pentagon has drawn sharp criticism from opponents. One Democratic lawmaker went so far as to accuse him of war crimes and compare him to Nazi submarine captains, rhetoric that says more about the accuser than the accused. Against that backdrop, Hegseth's straightforward endorsement of a bipartisan veterans bill is a reminder that the defense secretary's actual policy positions often get buried under partisan noise.
Blumenthal, for his part, framed the legislation in blunt terms during the hearing.
"It will eliminate this wounded warrior tax."
The phrase "wounded warrior tax" is advocacy language, but the underlying math is real. Veterans who were medically retired due to combat injuries and who qualify for VA disability compensation currently see their retirement pay reduced dollar-for-dollar. Some lose thousands of dollars a year, money they earned through service and sacrifice, reduced by a bureaucratic offset that Congress already eliminated for longer-serving retirees two decades ago.
Blumenthal has repeatedly tried to move the bill forward. His most recent push came in March, when he called for a Senate vote. Johnson's objection stopped it cold. The bill has been introduced in multiple sessions of Congress without reaching the president's desk.
Hegseth has been managing a heavy portfolio at the Pentagon, including delegating a Ukraine defense meeting to his policy chief as the Pentagon shifted focus toward the Middle East. His willingness to weigh in on a domestic veterans benefit during a budget hearing signals that the issue registers on his radar, and that the administration is not opposed to the spending if Congress can sort out the mechanics.
Hegseth did not detail how the administration would support funding for the bill. His endorsement was a statement of policy support, not a legislative blueprint. Whether the White House will actively lobby for a pay-for mechanism, or simply leave Congress to work it out, could determine whether the Star Act finally moves.
The hearing itself centered on the broader $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal 2027, and the Star Act exchange was one piece of a longer session. But for the 54,000 veterans affected, it may have been the most consequential moment of the day.
Hegseth has also shown a willingness to push back publicly when he believes the moment calls for it. On the Star Act, though, the push is in the same direction as veterans groups, a bipartisan supermajority of Congress, and basic fairness.
Seventy-nine senators. Three hundred twenty-three House members. Every major veterans organization. And now the secretary of defense. The Maj. Richard Star Act has more support than most bills ever dream of. The only thing it lacks is a vote.
Congress has found ways to fund far less popular measures. If it cannot find $11 billion over a decade to honor combat-wounded veterans, the problem is not the price tag. It is the priorities.