John Boozman

I would like you to, for the record, provide to this committee the reason why it is your number one unfunded priority?

Have you gotten any guidance put out by OSD addressing this?

And I think I will be submitting some too.

The increase in fertilizer costs, the input costs are just through the roof.

U.S. is a very generous country, and it has really stepped up in the past. It is stepping up now.

The VA's Fourth Mission played an essential role in the interagency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and we are very grateful for the efforts in that regard.

The budget requests $301 billion in fiscal year 2023 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, including medical care collections and the Transformation Fund, representing an 11.3 percent increase over fiscal year 2022-enacted levels.

I introduced a bill last week that prohibits the VA from using any funds to allocate health care staff to care for non-citizens following the inevitable escalation caused by the removal of Title 42 orders.

Can we get the same commitment from you that the VA's Fourth Mission will not be used to divert health care staff to the border to treat non-citizens following the escalation at the border?

Members of this subcommittee remain committed to providing VA with the resources needed to care for our veterans.

However, the growth of the department's budget at this rate is unsustainable.

Our missile stockpiles are being stretched thin after years of reducing it at a minimum rate of sustainment.

I think the reality is that kind of gets us out of the hole that we are currently in but does not do any for planning in the sense, you know, making the system where it works better.

What we do not want to do is repeat the same implementation.

We anticipate working hard, getting this done, another 500,000 or so a year?

Sometimes we do not do as good a job on the oversight as we--and that is nobody's fault. I mean, it is our fault.

It is time to go back to the fundamentals.

This is a mess, and I know that we are all committed to helping get it straightened out.

The answers need to come from the ground-up.

Again, inflation is such a difficult thing, you know, in so many different areas.

There is no question that families in rural America need access to affordable, quality health care, child care, and elder care in their communities.

The actions of this Administration have certainly not been good for rural quality of life.

Since President Biden has taken office, food prices have increased by more than eight percent.

Unfortunately, the current economic and policy environment is far from stable for our rural communities.

Let us get it to the areas that do not have it, as opposed to the areas that have pretty good that want better.