I am sure we would all agree that women veterans must have equal access to gender-specific and comprehensive health care and benefits as their male counterparts.

Women have answered the call and today serve our country alongside their male counterparts.

I would like to know if you can provide at a later time, with the inaction of dealing with the authorization bill, what negative effect that is going to have on the economy.

The Subcommittee has taken action on a significant number of VFW priorities, such as the Women Veterans' Health Care Improvement Act.

In reading the testimony also from Mr. Stowe, he had mentioned in his testimony that Customs has not hired over 72 textile apparel specialists that Congress has appropriated.

In your testimony on H.R. 1546, you recommend that we must ensure that the operations of the TBI Committee are transparent and that all deliberations and notes of the Committee be open to public scrutiny.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to questions from Paralyzed Veterans of America's (PVA) June 18, 2009 testimony on pending legislation before the Committee.

We must keep the woman veteran in mind when addressing the above-mentioned pertinent issues and ensure all receive comprehensive care when visiting VA Medical Centers.

Thank you again for taking the time to answer these questions. The Committee looks forward to receiving your answers by August 3, 2009.

I think they want to be part of that process in moving forward before the decision is made.

We have a hard time figuring out why people from VISN 8 to VISN 1 and 2 are telling us that they have a really tight budget this year when we got a 12-percent increase in the veterans' health care budget.