Angie Craig: “at this late hour it is interesting to me that, having had the House and the Senate speak in two different voices on the…”

“at this late hour it is interesting to me that, having had the House and the Senate speak in two different voices on the same issue in less than 24 hours, we would stand here and determine exactly the right thing to do. The $1.5 billion that we voted on yesterday is a figure I and my staff came up with. I happen to be the Republican chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. But, having said that, the ranking Democrat Member, Danny Akaka, agreed with that. Senator Patty Murray had been out front on it early on. I told her at the time I didn't know if our figures were right, and if we were wrong we would correct them. We can point a lot of fingers, but here are some realities. We have increased the veterans budget nearly 10 percent every year for the last 4. I said on the floor yesterday and I will say it again tonight, because it cannot be disputed, whether it was a Democratic President or whether it was a Republican President, the fact is they almost always underfunded veterans. It was the Congress in a bipartisan vote that funded it accurately and adequately. For those percentages of increase over the last several years, Democrats and Republicans alike stood together to do it and we produced a high-quality health care system. No veteran who is qualified today is being denied. No veteran tonight, with the now shortfall, is being denied. The reason they are not being denied is quite simple.…”