Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, let's shed light on the Republicans' broken promises to our veterans. I have the privilege of serving as the ranking member of the normally bipartisan Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee. However, this year, my Republican colleagues plan to slash medical care for toxic-exposed veterans, rolling back a promise this body made just last year when we passed the bipartisan PACT Act into law. The PACT Act created the Toxic Exposures Fund, which is a pledge in law to provide a dedicated funding source to ensure the care related to toxic exposures will always be set aside and not have to compete with other veterans' priorities at VA and other agencies. As you can see in this chart from the Republicans' VA budget report, President Biden honored this promise by carefully calculating the need and proposing $20.3 billion for the TEF in his fiscal year 2024 budget. The Republicans' bill only provides $5.5 billion, a quarter of the request. Not only do they shortchange the TEF by $14.7 in 2024, but Republicans completely eliminate it, they zeroed it out in 2025. Republicans can protest all they want, but their broken promise to our veterans is right here in black and white. We must keep our promise to our veterans, just like Joe Biden and the Democrats do. ____________________”