Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Arkansas, the chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee in presenting this bill for consideration before the full Senate. I thank him for his work to create a fair and bipartisan bill. I also thank the Appropriations Committee chairman and vice chairman for their leadership and commitment to an orderly process to bring these bills and all the appropriations bills to the floor. This is the first set of appropriations bills before the Senate this year. We are making good progress, and in the next few days, we are going to set the tone for the rest of our work this year on appropriations. This bill builds on the progress we made in the omnibus by providing critical funding to support our veterans, servicemembers, and their families. It also funds military construction projects that are needed to continue our work to address years of budgetary risk-taking that have led to neglected facilities tied to military readiness. In total, the bill provides the VA with nearly $5 billion more than last year's bill and adds more than $200 million for military construction. I am particularly pleased that we were able to fund $500 million worth of unfunded military construction requirements.…”