Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Tennessee and my good friend from California for their leadership of our Veterans' Affairs Committee. They are a dynamic duo. I appreciate the opportunity to be on the floor to be in support of this list of good bills tonight. Mr. Speaker, I particularly want to thank my friend from New Jersey, Mr. Kim, for his hard work and collaboration on this important bill for our veterans. Mr. Speaker, in the last 5 years I have served in this House, I have had over 3,200 cases completed and closed for veterans in my district. As a former community banker, when I look at those cases and I listen to these stories, this too often is a challenge for our veterans. It is a crazy challenge. Mr. Speaker, that withholding a payment can have severe consequences for our brave veterans who are out there just doing their job, through no fault of their own and through a computer mess up or an IT problem, our veterans receive an overpayment and then suddenly get a letter a few weeks later saying, ``Oh, hey, we made a mistake. You owe us $5,000 back.'' Well, the normal American, Mr. Speaker, doesn't have that kind of financial planning expertise, and relies on the quality of our VA services to not make mistakes like that. So it is a pleasure to work with Mr. Kim on this measure to try to improve that situation and answer the IG's own report at the VA that this is a serious problem affecting over 1.5 million veterans.…”