ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Lawmakers in Washington have been keeping busy recently, and some of that work had some help from Sen. Jerry Moran.
One of Moran’s recent bill introductions was for a permanent tax break for small businesses, which he introduced with 33 colleagues.
“Kansas small businesses support rural and urban communities across the state,” Moran noted in a release from his office. “By making this small business tax break permanent, businesses across the nation will be able to remain open, retain hard-working employees and help the areas around them thrive.”
“As the son of a contractor, I’ve seen firsthand the hard work it takes to keep a small business flourishing,” said Sen. Steve Daines noted in the release from Moran’s office “It’s absolutely crucial we pass this legislation to prevent a 20 percent tax increase for hardworking Montanans, and I’ll keep fighting for ways to support Montana small businesses, which provide the majority of jobs in our state.”
“Small businesses are the economic engine that drive growth and jobs in South Dakota and across our country,” Sen. John Thune noted in the release from Moran’s office. “This legislation is critical to permanently extending a key provision from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and ensuring our small businesses and farms and ranches are not hit with a crippling tax hike at the end of 2025.”
Sens. Moran, Daines and Thune were joined by Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Jim Justice (R-W.V.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), John Kennedy (R-La.) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
The full bill text can be found at www.moran.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6/3/63236ab6-4733-4bd0-9965-b27b108da5ee/4D3F9DA04E63C7FA3237F71059B8C8E01BACCED2F33FE741EB9C0E2702FE294A.mcg25014.pdf.
Tuesday, Moran announced he and Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) introduced legislation to increase access to care for veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) providers in the community.
The Veterans’ Assuring Critical Care Expansions to Support Servicemembers (ACCESS) Act of 2025 would establish existing community care access standards as the baseline standard of care for veterans seeking care in the community, increase access to life-saving treatment programs for veterans with mental health conditions or addiction and expand the list of criteria VA is required to take into account when determining whether it is in a veteran’s best medical interest to refer a veteran to the community to include veteran preference and continuity of care.
“No veteran – especially one facing cancer, addiction, chronic pain or a mental health condition – should have to wait weeks or months for the care they need or have to fight to receive the community care referrals they are entitled to by law,” Moran noted in a release from his office. “Yet, that is the reality for far too many veterans in the VA health care system today. Veterans deserve prompt, high-quality care and greater flexibility in choosing when, where, and how to use the health care benefits they have earned through their service. This legislation will help make certain that VA delivers on those promises. I thank Rep. Bost for joining me in introducing this legislation, and I look forward to working with him to see it signed into law. Veterans and their families are counting on it.”
“The VA community care program is a promise to veterans to provide local, on-time care, which is why we must ensure that VA facilities across the country are focused squarely on providing care for veterans, regardless of whether its in-house or in their community,” Bost noted in the release from Moran’s office. “However, House Republicans uncovered disturbing stories of VA bureaucrats intentionally restricting veterans’ healthcare choice in an effort to keep veterans stuck in line in the VA system. That’s dead wrong. Chairman Moran and my bill, the Veterans’ ACCESS Act, would rightfully protect and preserve the intent of the MISSION Act and the VA community care program so that no bureaucrat can stand in the way of veterans accessing the healthcare they have earned – whether that is inside or outside the VA. When VA inserts itself as the sole decision maker and plays politics with veterans’ health, people get hurt, cancer patients can’t get their treatment, and families spend more time arguing with bureaucrats than focusing on their mental health – it’s high time we change that.”
Introduction of the Veterans’ ACCESS Act followed Moran presiding over a Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing where veterans, family members and advocates testified about unacceptably long wait times, restrictions on community care referrals and other bureaucratic barriers that prevent veterans – including those with mental health conditions or addiction that put them at high-risk of suicide – from accessing life-saving care from VA.
