In the President’s 2025 budget request, total military compensation is $600 billion, including veterans' benefits. That amount represents an increase of 162 percent since 1980 (and 151 percent since 1999) after removing inflation’s effects.
Military and Veterans' Health Care
ReportCBO periodically issues a compendium of policy options and their estimated effects on the federal budget. This report presents 76 options for altering spending or revenues to reduce federal budget deficits over the next decade.
ReportCBO describes economic outcomes of veterans who are Black, male, and working age and whose service began during or after 1990. CBO compares the outcomes of that group with outcomes of Black nonveterans and White veterans from 2017 to 2019.
ReportCBO compared the earnings, personal income, and household income of working-age male veterans who received disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs with those of veterans who did not receive such payments.
ReportCBO issues a volume that contains short descriptions of 59 policy options that would each reduce the federal budget deficit by less than $300 billion over the next 10 years.
ReportCBO describes how the Department of Veterans Affairs provides health care to many veterans through the Veterans Community Care Program and how that program has affected veterans’ access to care and other outcomes.
ReportTo help assess budgetary risks, CBO has projected spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs through 2028 under three scenarios, a modified version of CBO’s baseline and two other scenarios involving more rapid spending growth.
ReportCBO examined possible changes to the Department of Defense’s Military Health System, analyzing the effects of those changes on the federal budget, the quality of military health care, and preparedness for wartime missions.
ReportRecent legislation calls for the Veterans Health Administration to expand the availability of health care to veterans. Research suggests that VHA-provided care has been cheaper than private-sector care, but future costs are uncertain.