I have two issues with that: 1. What foreign aid?, and 2. Why veterans?
Recently, the United States reached an agreement with Georgia, a former Republic of the Soviet Union, on safeguarding nuclear material so it doesn't fall into the hands of terrorists. Should we cancel this foreign aid to pay for veterans benefits? How about cancelling our foreign aid to Israel? Perhaps we should cancel foreign aid to Darfur or the same, small amount of money we put into the AIDs epidemic in Africa?
Now to be perfectly fair, there most certainly must be some pretty flakey foreign aid programs that can use some trimming. Unfortunately, Virgil is a little short on specifics here. Virgil stays in the "foreign aid" category and that kind of sounds like welfare and that is easy to take pot shots at. When you get down to specific programs, that gets a little trickier. It also takes a little more work.
The second big issue is; Why veterans? Did you insist on a corresponding foreign aid reduction when the Republican majority was voting on a pay increase? Did you insist on a foreign aid reduction when the Republican majority was voting on that huge tax reduction for the most wealthy in America?... or the tax breaks for the oil companies? Why do you insist on an extra hurdle for veterans benefits? Do you think they need this extra "bump" to justify full funding?
Virgil, I am a veteran (USMC)... proud of it too. I think you should agree to fully funding veteran's benefits without any preconditions. If you are looking for an expenditure to tie to foreign aid, try Congressional benefits. Now that's something we can all get behind.