David Price: “I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Chairman, I rise today in qualified support of the fiscal year 2014 Military…”

“I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Chairman, I rise today in qualified support of the fiscal year 2014 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. I want to thank Chairman Culberson and Ranking Member Bishop for their leadership and commend my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for a cordial, timely, and deliberative process. I have to caution, however, that this bill's relatively generous allocation must be viewed in the context of the overall fiscal year 2014 appropriations process. To get workable allocations for the two appropriations bills we will consider this week, the majority has drastically underfunded other critical appropriations bills, from educational research, to health care, to repairing and maintaining our Nation's crumbling infrastructure. Earlier today, I joined with many colleagues to vote against the rule providing for consideration of the bill before us, because the resolution requires this body to carry out the fiscal year 2014 appropriations process within the framework of the so-called ``Ryan budget,'' which doubles down on sequestration and will have devastating consequences as our Nation continues its economic recovery. So the overall appropriations process is in deep trouble. But the bill before us gives the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs adequate resources to address several critical challenges faced by our military and veterans community.…”