{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://houlahan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4809", "Government shutdown \u2018disastrous\u2019 for veterans: Lawmakers, advocates", "2025-11-06", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "House", "PA", "Chrissy Houlahan", "H001085", "houlahan.house.gov", "houlahan", "https://houlahan.house.gov/press/documentquery.aspx", "page_html", "Published by The Hill\n\nWritten by Surina Venkat\n\nClick here to watch full speakers' panels at The Hill Veterans Voices Summit\n\nLawmakers and advocates characterized the government shutdown and the partisan politics fueling it as \u201cdisastrous\u201d for retired and active-duty service members, who they said rely on food assistance and medical coverage provisions at risk amid the funding lapse.\n\n\u201cThis shutdown is really disastrous for our current military, and it\u2019s not just because of the financial worry, which is very high,\u201d Kathy Roth-Douquet, co-founder and CEO of Blue Star Families, told NewsNation\u2019s Washington bureau chief Mike Viqueira on Thursday at The Hill\u2019s \u201cVeteran Voices Summit.\u201d\n\nThough veterans\u2019 issues enjoy broad bipartisan support, lawmakers and advocates said the Trump administration\u2019s funding cuts and the shutdown disproportionately impacted service members.\n\n\u201cWe can\u2019t keep shooting ourselves in the foot on this kind of stuff,\u201d said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), a former Air Force officer. \u201cWe have to take care of our veterans and cannot be partisan about this.\u201d\n\nAbout 1.2 million veterans in the U.S. live in households that participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance to low-income families.\n\nSNAP\u2019s funding was set to lapse Nov. 1, though lawmakers introduced legislation to try to fund the program amid the government shutdown. Following a federal judge\u2019s ruling, the administration said it would partially fund the program in November.\n\nRoth-Douquet said the number of military members turning to food banks during the shutdown was \u201csurging\u201d because many members have spouses who are federal government workers \u2014 meaning their household income was \u201cdown one paycheck\u201d during the shutdown.\n\n\u201cBut more importantly, we are so vital in the military to our civilian leadership, and when our civilian leadership doesn\u2019t seem like they can do their basic job, it undermines our confidence in serving,\u201d she said. She said some veterans no longer wanted to recommend military service to others due to the political tumult.\n\nVirginia Burger, a senior defense policy analyst for the Project on Government Oversight and a former Marine Corps member, said the \u201cpoliticization of the military\u201d through measures such as the federal government\u2019s deployment of the National Guard in recent months has affected veterans\u2019 morale.\n\n\u201cIf the military loses credibility, that hurts veterans, right?\u201d Burger said. \u201cIt hurts our own ability, if the reputation of the organization we are associated with is discolored, it\u2019s going to have a negative impact on us.\u201d", 1, "2026-04-08T14:14:11Z", "2026-04-08T14:23:06Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://houlahan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4809"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9748181328177452, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}