{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://pappas.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-pappas-ranking-members-takano-blumenthal-demand-secretary-collins-address-va-education-and-housing-benefit-payment-delays", "Congressman Pappas, Ranking Members Takano & Blumenthal Demand Secretary Collins Address VA Education and Housing Benefit Payment Delays", "2025-11-17", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "House", "NH", "Chris Pappas", "P000614", "pappas.house.gov", "pappas", "https://pappas.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "Ranking Member of the House Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Chris Pappas (NH-01), House Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano (CA-41), and Senate Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (CT) sent a letter addressed to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins urging him to address VA\u2019s failure to pay out required education benefits to tens of thousands of veterans, their families, and survivors.\n\n\u201cWith the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Benefits Administration offices once again open and funded, we write to express alarm about VA failing to pay out required education benefits to thousands of veterans, their families, and survivors,\u201d wrote the lawmakers.\n\nTheir letter notes that in August 2025, Congress was initially informed that 750 individuals were experiencing payment delays. Recent reporting indicates that \u201cVA recently shared with schools that there are now 75,000 Dependent Educational Assistance (DEA) beneficiaries impacted by delayed payments.\u201d This reporting echoes the information congressional offices are receiving directly from veterans, families, and schools.\n\n\u201cThese payment failures are not merely a bureaucratic inconvenience; they are a direct failure to uphold the sacred promises made to those who served our country,\u201dcontinued the lawmakers. \u201cThe fact that payments for essential housing and tuition benefits have been delayed for nearly four months, forcing student veterans and survivors into financial instability and uncertainty as they began a new academic term, is simply unacceptable.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers demanded an immediate resolution to these issues and urged Secretary Collins to provide his \u201coverdue answer to the questions posed in our October 9th, 2025, letter\u201d by December 3rd, 2025, and to immediately share an \u201caction plan from VA detailing the scope of those impacted, how VA is going to make them whole, timeline for a resolution of both the 75,000-case backlog for Chapter 35 and delayed Post-9/11 GI Bill payments, and how VA will be preventing any recurrence of this failure in the future.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "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://pappas.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-pappas-ranking-members-takano-blumenthal-demand-secretary-collins-address-va-education-and-housing-benefit-payment-delays"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8039879612624645, "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"}