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

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

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

Last night I held a telephone town hall meeting, and I spoke with hundreds of my constituents about the pressing issues facing America today. Many people on the call spoke about the need for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution…

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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