Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, today, January 13 in Washington, we are in a little bit of a hiatus waiting for a new administration and a new Congress to begin the process of bringing forward new policy proposals and a budget. In the meantime, in the last 13 days, we have seen, I think, groundbreaking, exciting developments for the people of this country as a result of legislation that was passed in 2022 and 2023 and implemented by the Biden administration. The first is the PACT Act. In 2022, after 5 years of hard-fought advocacy by veterans' groups all across the country, this measure opened the door for veterans of the Vietnam war era and also the Middle East era, who suffered horrible cancers, heart disease, and life- threatening conditions, to make sure that they could connect to the VA healthcare system to get the help they need. Basically, what it did in 2022 was allow veterans who served in those parts of the world in those conflicts who suffered from 23 different illnesses--we are talking about cancers, heart disease, and life- threatening illnesses--to be able to avoid the gymnastics of having to prove to the VA where they were on such and such a date and how they were exposed to a burn pit or to Agent Orange. As a result of that, we have seen over 1.4 million veterans nationwide have their PACT Act claims approved and over 384,000 Vietnam, Gulf war, and post-9/11 veterans get newly enrolled in the healthcare system. Six million toxic exposure tests were done as a result of this law.…”