Florida Rep. Brian Mast, who served in the U.S. Army and was wounded in Afghanistan, is drafting legislation that could change the Veteran Affairs Home Loan program by allowing veterans to buy farmland.
Rep. Mast recently told The Floridian that he believes that the current home loan program is not flexible enough for veterans.
“The VA Home loan program doesn’t lend itself well to somebody who wants to become an entrepreneur and get into producing,” said Rep. Mast.
Rep. Mast believes that this idea would be a great way of “getting more people into farming in America,” adding that the upcoming “Farm Bill is the place to do that.”
How the Mast idea would work is pretty straightforward.
Any veteran who receives an honorable or general discharge and is able to furnish a DD214 would be eligible to receive homesteading that has been set aside for conveyance to veterans by the measure.
According to Mast, the Governor of each state would be tasked to administrate the covered federal lands and allocate those lands to eligible veterans in accordance with this measure.
With Republicans winning the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2022 Midterm elections, the chances that Mast’s potential legislative bill passes in the 118th Congress have increased. Other Florida Republicans have already promised to make veterans' issues a top priority in 2023.
Both Rep. Michael Waltz and Congressman-elect Cory Mills vowed to seek to ban CRT indoctrination in the U.S. Military and its supporting academies.
