Political Quotes

“I appreciate an opportunity to speak on a bill we passed here yesterday, the veterans access reform bill. We passed it 93 to 3, which is amazing when you think about it--in this body--as we struggle to get issues in front of us and work on them. What we saw was an incredible bipartisan piece of legislation basically saying: We are for vets. We want to make sure that veterans have the best care they deserve and they earned fighting wars--not only the recent ones but in the past. I want to talk a little bit about the piece of legislation, and then I am going to talk about some pieces that are important to Alaska. I will show some examples here in a second. But I ultimately want to talk about what is left still ahead of us. As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, it is not just about passing one bill and saying: We are done; we have done our chore; we have done our job. No, there is a lot more work ahead of us. This bill we passed is a bipartisan bill, with Democrats and Republicans coming together because veterans are not a partisan issue; it is an American issue. In my State it is an American-Alaskan issue; in the Presiding Officer's State, a Massachusetts issue. It is important for all of us to step to the plate and make sure we do the right thing. This now provides the VA Secretary the authority to dismiss those senior executives who are not performing, are not doing the jobs.…”