It was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on October 25, 1988, but actually came into effect under the term of his successor, George H. W. Bush, on March 15, 1989.

This bill passed into law over the objection of some of President Reagan's fellow Republicans, who were committed to preventing the U.S. federal government from expanding further.

Many Republicans along with most Democrats ultimately supported it on the basis that it was really more of a reorganization than an expansion of government as the new department was in reality going to be doing very few things that the former Veterans Administration had not already been doing.

There was the further consideration that military veterans constitute a large and powerful voting bloc and could easily be offended at the perceived slight that opposition to the bill might have implied.

Department of Veterans Affairs Act{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)