Barbara Boxer: “Senator Pryor's bill is a restoration bill. It restores fairness and justice to our military veterans. It repeals the…”

“Senator Pryor's bill is a restoration bill. It restores fairness and justice to our military veterans. It repeals the cuts to cost-of-living adjustments--we call them COLAs--for military retirees under the age of 62. I see the Senator from Alaska just came in the Chamber, and I want to reiterate how much I appreciate his leadership. I say to Senator Begich, his analysis of this important restoration bill--restoring fairness and justice--was so right when he said our veterans have paid in full, and to get into some conversation of who do we hurt in order to pay these veterans is not worthy of our men and women in uniform. I want to thank him for his leadership. Repealing these COLA cuts, well, that is the right thing to do. We are talking about men and women in uniform who have served our Nation bravely for more than 20 years. I have to say, as I stand up in strong support of the Pryor amendment in restoring these benefits to our veterans, I adamantly oppose the Ayotte amendment, which is hurtful to children, very hurtful to children, and I will get into that later. When these veterans first put on the uniform and they promised to protect and defend our Nation, we made them a solemn promise to provide them with the care and benefits they earned. These men and women have sacrificed so much for us and, tragically, too many of them made the ultimate sacrifice. In my State of California, we lost 892 service men and women in Iraq, and we have lost 411 in Afghanistan.…”