we don't see the Administration really tackling, leading on tackling really the driver of our debt.

Thank you, Chairman Coffman

This bill recognizes the tremendous problems associated with VA major construction projects.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for his kind words as well. Madam Speaker, from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And I said, Here…

These bills are intended to heighten the protection for our veterans and improve services provided by the VA.

Unfortunately, I think sometimes politics gets in the way within VA, within the community, within Congress.

This legislation requires the VA to use the Army Corps of Engineers as the special project manager.

So when the GAO report says that these major medical construction projects are delayed an average of 35 months each with an average overrun of $360 million each, you differ with GAO and you say that you can produce accounting standards…

Many people on this committee have a majority of their constituents who are not millionaires and billionaires.

What should VA do to maintain control of construction designs in the future?

I just think it is so disgraceful how our Gulf War veterans have been treated on this issue.

Notably this bill is supported by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and the former secretary of Veterans' Affairs, Jim Nicholson.

if you like your bank, you should be able to keep it.

I have long said that we have not engaged Latin America, South America, the Caribbean, and Central America in the methods that we should.

There is more democracy in South America today than there was 30 years ago.

One man said if you believe the same way you believed 30 years ago today you have wasted 30 years.

This is what I regard as an asset tax. And assets for banks are loans. So it runs counter, I believe, to our economic interest.

I believe the insolvency of Social Security in 2023 to be real.