Have you had any sit-downs with any of the State officials?

Well, I guess it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you are going to now perform the same functions that you gave a contracting company $50-some-odd million to do and you are going to do it in-house, that you are going…

the most important thing at this point is not to assign blame, but rather to chart a path forward that fixes the problems.

I have heard story after story from family after family, business owners, homeowners, renters, local officials.

And to me that is simply unacceptable.

It is because of this Congress and the last three Presidents that we finally have come to the point of recognizing it and have stopped sweeping it under the rug.

Mr. Speaker, I want to state for the record that today, March 11th, I was unavoidably detained in my district and missed several rollcall votes. Had I been present I would have voted: ``aye''--rollcall vote 115--On Motion to Suspend the…

The commitment that the President has made to expanding educational opportunities and the investments in research and science within this budget are things I strongly support.

The BRAIN Initiative is one of the investments that I think is particularly worthwhile.

Mr. President, I would remind my colleague from Louisiana that the vote on that bill was 56 to 41. This is a 15-vote plurality. There is another person who was not here who would have voted for us on that bill, so 57 votes. But because of…

We have seen 2,300 individuals suffer wounds in war that make it impossible for them to have kids.

Enactment of S. 932 will generally free all VA services from the political gridlock that has crippled the appropriations process in Congress.

the cost of war is much, much greater, I think, than most Americans perceive.

We applaud Senator Boozman and Senator Begich for leading this effort in the Senate by introducing S. 932, the 'Putting Veterans Funding First Act.'

The country, above and beyond the VA, faces a crisis in lack of quality, affordable access to mental health care.

We need to make sure that people have access to mental health services in a timely manner.

We are dealing now with hundreds of thousands of men and women who have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, dealing with traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder.

I want to thank all of our guests from VA for being with us today to discuss the budget.