Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate my friend from Connecticut, and the issue was there were two Takano amendments. One is made in order that does a similar thing, but also to simply say that the Senate bill, which was reported out in May, has never been taken up in the Senate because they have had significant opposition to it. In fact, the only way they got it reported out was union groups and others, they had to make changes to it to get their agreement. I think at this point we are putting veterans first, not these outside interest groups. I think we just need to understand that the Senate bill has not moved. The Senate bill, in fact, has not passed out of the Senate and shows no hope of passing out of the Senate at this point, and so why should we take that, frankly, product and come over here when we have a bill that can move. We are offering as many of these amendments as possible. We are going to be voting on my friend from California's amendment as well today. These are the kinds of things where I think we just need to look at this bill for what it is. It is helping veterans. The bottom line is not just simply saying this is what we are doing. This is coming from VA employees, VA employees who are saying help us not be, you know, categorized with all the other things that are going on and with those that are actually bringing what we do down, and also trying to help the appeals process in this situation.…”