Tim Walz

I am deeply concerned with Dr. Petzel's comments after this had already been brought to notice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today.

We must remember President Lincoln's commitment in his second inaugural address 'to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.'

I think your passion for this, and you are absolutely right, I would be furious with Sonny Montgomery.

I think Secretary Shinseki needs to resign. He has failed in his leadership completely.

there is a bit of a cavalier attitude being put forward and I daresay almost dismissive of the reports.

I think your point on management on this is where it comes to because I am convinced...

Whenever Sonny was asked 'Are you red or blue?' his consistent answer was 'I am red, white and blue.'

due process should never endanger veterans.

This is not a kerfuffle. This is an incredible breach of trust.

I would like to thank the chairman and the ranking member of the full committee and the subcommittees for doing exceptional work, for putting our veterans first, for bringing a package of commonsense legislation to honor our Nation's…

Not supporting veterans isn't one of them.

The fix to this, and the way to remove veterans, and we anticipated 3 years ago when we did advance appropriations, remove veterans from this fight.

We may have differences on policy and ideology. We certainly don't have differences on love of this country.

I think you are wrong on some of the policies. This is the place to debate that; not a Martial Law rule that goes to the floor with no amendments.

We are wasting valuable time and resources by a self-inflicted wound that should be going toward our veterans.

I trust that you--and the thing I would say about this is, the comment that we shouldn't be talking about furloughs or whatever, the VA is an organization of people.

I am disappointed, to say the least.

FEMA is not there, and they are not there because they are furloughed.

We fix the shutdown, FEMA can show up.

This issue of being able to communicate, this issue of preparedness, this issue of interoperability...

The one thing I hear from my constituents when I talk to them out in southern Minnesota: Is it so much to ask you folks just to do your job? As the drama swirls and the brinkmanship goes and it's deja vu all over again, certain things…

I will stand at the VA as your staunchest supporter, but your harshest critic when the time comes to get that.

I have a simple question: Why are we going home in August? It's really not a rhetorical question. All across southern Minnesota and across this country, farmers and ranchers have been up for hours quietly going about their business of…

I urge the Subcommittee members to support H.R. 975, the Servicemember Mental Health Review Act, offered by Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN 1).