Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for, once again, bringing up a really important piece of legislation. I believe the gentleman is also the longest serving member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Any piece of important legislation over the last decade-plus has had his hand in it. H.R. 4830, as amended, is a bill that we have worked on in a bipartisan basis with TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. TAPS came to the committee and to Mr. Bilirakis, after they heard from many surviving spouses that with all of the changes that were being implemented on August 1, there will be delayed payments and processing times for payments for veterans and survivors enrolled for the fall 2018 semester. {time} 1545 The Forever GI Bill that we are all in this body proud of passing and proud of updating contains several large-scale changes the VA is currently working very hard to implement. Some of those changes went into effect in the fall of 2017, and TAPS reported to the committee that, because of delays in VA payments, many schools demanded payment from students. There were stories of students who were not allowed to attend class, register for classes, or use campus facilities only because the VA payment was delayed. In some cases, students were even put on a payment plan they could not afford or forced to take out student loans with egregious orientation fees in order to continue their education.…”