Austin Scott: “To my friends from the Republican Party and their alternative in their budget, it is the meanest cut of all, to cut our…”

“To my friends from the Republican Party and their alternative in their budget, it is the meanest cut of all, to cut our veterans at this time, at this day, at this hour when we are watching television and we see over in the Middle East where our men and women in uniform are putting their lives on the line, and what are we doing here? What is the Republican answer to that, to our military veterans? To cut them by $15 billion. Indeed, the meanest cut of all. My colleagues talk about conservative compassionism. I am here to tell my colleagues, this is not conservative compassionism. This is downright conservative meanness. It is mean to cut our military and our veterans, by any amount. They need help. Fifteen billion dollars is going to eliminate 200,000 of our veterans off the rolls. It is going to fold and close up 400,000 hospital beds. That is meanness. We need to turn it around and follow our Blue Dog coalition budget, which is very responsible.”