Congress can, tomorrow, determine that we are going to do an advance budget for VA, and we have the power to do that.

I do not believe there is a President that is going to propose, regardless of what party they come from, something they perceive to be less than needed.

If I could borrow a sentiment from our former colleague who is now our Commander-in-Chief, the men and women who wear the uniform, the Nation's uniform, do not come from a collection of red and blue States but from the United States.

This is nothing new, and I hope all of us here today can get behind innovative approaches to fixing the system.

It is time we develop a strategy to implement the Veterans' Disability Commission's recommendations.

What I am trying to do is find some common ground where we do not lock ourselves into a budget that is computed based upon bad data which might have a bad outcome.

I agree with all of you that timely, predictable, sufficient budgets are absolutely essential.

They expect us to leave politics aside when we act on their behalf, and I am committed to work with the Chairman and all the Committee Members toward that end.

I am in full agreement with the goals of providing VA a timely, predictable, and sufficient budget.

It certainly seems like something that we need to work together on, because with these huge numbers of vacancies it's certainly posing problems and risks in this area.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Do you believe that we're doing all we need to do in order to ensure that the remaining troops are secure?

I think that the plans that General Odierno has drawn up for consolidating our forces... I have great confidence in the plans that he has drawn up.

One of the issues that we've done in North Carolina is to take the transfat out of the school lunches.

I think the Community Care program which we'll be hearing about is a model that I'm hoping that the rest of the country will take serious note of.

This waiver when granted offers an opportunity for North Carolina to save $1.4 billion over the next 5 years.

I think it's a shocking number and I think they need to hear it.

I want to point out for the committee members--and it gets at the heart of what I think all our panelists have said--that when we start to get ahead, all of a sudden we get knocked back.