Marty Walsh: “we have had this debate, the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) and I, for the better part of the afternoon. The…”

“we have had this debate, the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) and I, for the better part of the afternoon. The issue here is the offset that he provides under the rule, and he is asking for an emergency declaration. We considered that process and ultimately rejected it. What we did was we found real dollars within the budget to allocate for veterans health, and what we did was provide a $1.7 billion increase over the President's request. As the gentleman has stipulated to and agreed to, and I think it is a unanimous agreement now, the President's request for veterans medical health was not only inadequate, it was embarrassing. They later came back and they suggested that, yes, they thought that the $1.7 billion level was the right level and supported it. We received a letter from the Vice President on that. We also received letters from the American Legion and from the Veterans of Foreign Wars who agreed that $1.7 billion was the right amount to fund veterans health care. I looked back at the budgets of the last 5 years, including this budget. We have gone from $15.7 billion in the 1996 enacted level to $19 billion this year. That is a $3.5 billion increase in funding for veterans. So we have striven mightily, in spite of the lack of support there seems to be in the executive branch for the veterans medical care budget. The Congress, both parties, have supported plussing up this budget, and we made hard choices, as we have heard in the debate today.”