Gus Bilirakis

I commend the Honorable Charles Rangel for his valor, for his sacrifice and courage.

I want to thank you, Tom, for your extraordinary service to your constituents.

Instead of asking, where was God? I think that we ought to ask, where were the people?

Please continue to do so. You are making a difference.

If that is true, then I am going to work hard to change the direction because we are spending American taxpayer dollars irresponsibly on this program.

Why aren't we using the money that we are giving to China to help spur the U.S. economy and job growth at home?

That they don't know. You don't know what the implications are to American companies until after you have implemented these policies.

I repeat my earlier desire to work with members on both sides of the aisle to ensure America's veterans have access to the benefits and services that they deserve.

Somehow we are going to have to crack this congressional barrier between Armed Services and VA, get serious about this.

I do think VA needs to have some answers on that.

Where the heck is Armed Services? We sit here and hold these hearings by ourselves, talking about DoD, and talking about they do not cooperate.

I think that you know we have all talked about, when you can get the access to the care, and when you can get there, I know Carl mentioned it, I use the VA as my health care provider and I could not be happier with the care that I get.

And all of us sitting here at this table back in the budget talks in the spring mentioned that we thought that the construction budgets, major and minor construction, were underfunded.

But we do these blanket statements, that all spending is bad, we cut it, we do all this, without asking what are your specifics?

I want to thank the witnesses also for their valuable testimony, and I want to thank you, the city of Detroit, for their hospitality.

I believe--and that is why I filed my bill, to encourage businesses and residential owners to rebuild, mitigate of course.

I am interested in your assessment of National Level Exercise 11. What are the main lessons learned from the exercise?

I think this is one of the huge unheralded milestones we have in this country of resolving, I think once and for all, the issue of: How do we bring Active-Duty forces to the Governor in a way that does not duplicate or replicate what they…

I think one of the things that I have learned in this process is oftentimes when we start programs with good intentions, we find that we maybe are not going the way we thought we were going and we need to reassess.

When do you realistically estimate you will have a concrete plan to maximize this care coordination between DoD and the VA?

I like the concept of having a single point of contact so that injured servicemembers and veterans have a one-stop shop in which to go for assistance.

I'm therefore baffled at the President's appointee for the Director of American Institute in Taiwan...

It is offensive to me that the U.N. Relief and Work Agency, or UNRWA's, stated goal since its inception in 1950 is essentially to keep the Palestinian people in a refugee status.

Can you please provide this committee with a progress report regarding the updated MOU between DHS and State?

If you could get that information to me, I would really appreciate it very much.