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.

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?

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.

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

I rise today to recognize the significant legislative victories the Senate recently delivered for women veterans with the passage of two pieces of legislation to modernize breast cancer screening polices and the delivery of lifesaving care…

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

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

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.

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.

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

It is time to go back to the fundamentals.

The answers need to come from the ground-up.

Federal policies and regulations can have an outsized impact on the economy of rural America.

You know, we say one thing, and yet--and again, you are the Federal Government. I am the Federal Government. We cannot continue to put additional burdens that actually go against what we are saying.

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

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

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

Shouldn't we be doing everything in our power to address this and other issues that will very likely negatively impact global commodity markets for years to come?

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

The common theme I hear from farmers and other rural Arkansans... is frustration with misplaced priorities and misguided policies.

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

If your boots on the ground are not there, it is not happening.

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