Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first, let me say I am hopeful that we can work together--if the chairman of the VA Committee is willing to do it--to try to arrive at language that calls for the rehiring of these veterans, rescinding the layoffs. I must say that we are joined today by a number of guests of my colleagues as well as myself, veterans who have been terminated. They are with us today. They are going to be with us tonight at the address offered by President Trump. I am more than happy to work on this resolution if there is a way to make it bipartisan, but the basic principle that we owe our veterans that contract and commitment and that we need to bring them back so that these kinds of consequences can be avoided I think is fundamental to the effort today. We know that more than 50 patient appointments were canceled at a VA facility just this past week because they can't hire staff needed to care for those veterans. We know that in the first round of terminations, Secretary Collins terminated nine Veterans Crisis Line employees. Then he hired some back, and then he fired more. We know that a pregnant spouse of a disabled veteran who was hired under the military spouse appointing authority was terminated. We know that a 25-year Marine Corps veteran with a 100-percent service-connected disability rating and 15 years of service was terminated. We know that a VA researcher working on treatments for substance use disorders among veterans was terminated.…”