Angie Craig: “I appreciate the expeditious way our leader and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans…”

“I appreciate the expeditious way our leader and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies has brought this important appropriations bill to the floor. It is, in my opinion, without question, that we ought to try to deal with all of our appropriations bills this year, complete them individually, complete the total process. We have seen the difficult and confusing process of omnibus bills over the last couple of years. Clearly, this Congress ought to demonstrate to the American taxpayer that we can conduct our budgeting and our appropriating process in a reasonable and responsible fashion to move ahead. The chairman of the subcommittee is urging us to come to the floor if we have amendments and address them in a timely fashion, to see if we can complete work on this appropriations bill today. I appreciate that. As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have worked closely with the chairman and the ranking member of this subcommittee to assure that we have adequately funded the Veterans' Administration. As our colleagues know--and certainly observers have known--we have had difficulty in effective and responsible projections of costs. As we have seen a ramping up of services to America's veterans and as the quality of veterans health care improves, there has been a substantially greater number of veterans who have chosen to use the veterans health care system to provide for their needs.…”