On the recordJuly 16, 2014
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am in my first term as a Member, and growing up as a kid in Alpine, Texas, I always heard the saying with respect to things that were really, really hard, and that saying was it takes an act of Congress to do that, and for the first time in my life, Mr. Speaker, I finally understand what that means because part of our challenge as an institution is that we are so wrapped up with who goes first, whether it is the House or the Senate. The House passed a bill by 390 votes. That is great. The Senate version passed by 93-3, and here, we are discussing whether the House version or the Senate version is better, and in the meantime, we are failing our veterans. My own view is that people across the political spectrum, veterans and nonveterans alike, are tired of the political blame game and the finger-pointing. Notice that not once did I ever really talk about the differences between Democrats and Republicans because, frankly, there are both Democratic veterans and Republican veterans and Libertarian veterans and Independent veterans and apolitical and nonpolitical veterans. The issue of veterans should not be something that we pound each other over the head on.…





