Alcee Hastings: “I rise today to submit this amendment to the VA-HUD Appropriations bill. This amendment would appropriate an additional…”

“I rise today to submit this amendment to the VA-HUD Appropriations bill. This amendment would appropriate an additional $1 million to the Veterans Health Administration. I had another amendment that would come later, but I am not going to offer it in the interest of the time of all of the membership of this body, but I am determined to try and do something about the hypocrisy that sometimes abounds in this Congress. I want to make it very clear that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the chairman of the subcommittee; the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan); the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the full committee; and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the full committee, have done the very best that they can within the budgetary boundaries under which they must operate. The arguments that we are making do not go, in the final analysis, to class warfare, they go to: What is it that motivates us as individuals to want to take care of the needs of this country? It is commonly said, "The mark of a great country is not what it does for those with the most, but for what it does for those with the least." This bill clearly does not do enough, having argued that the persons who have the responsibility of perpetrating it have done what they can, but it does not mean all of us did everything that we could. Public housing is grossly underfunded in this bill.”