Bill Nelson: “the underlying bill that the Senators from Hawaii and North Carolina have put together is a step in the right direction…”

“the underlying bill that the Senators from Hawaii and North Carolina have put together is a step in the right direction: increasing life insurance benefits, increasing disability benefits--particularly for traumatic brain injury--and doing that retroactively. There is another portion in here that makes a lot of sense. If under current law a veteran who is deployed to a war zone can get out of his apartment rental contract, why should not he be able to get out of his cell phone lease contract? That provision is in here. That is in the underlying bill. Let me tell you what is not in here--I am going to have to take this up on the Defense authorization bill--taking care of the widows and the orphans in the offset between survivor benefits plans and dependents' indemnity compensation--SVPDIC. The veterans' survivors, the widows and orphans, are entitled under both by law--but by law they offset each other. Thus widows and orphans are suffering. We will address that in the Defense authorization bill. I want to expand on what the two Senators from Hawaii have said. There is one thing that America should never do, and that is break her word. When we have allies who are side by side with us in war, and they are depending on our word that we are going to take care of them, it is the obligation of America to do that. I yield the floor.”