Political Quotes

“I thank the acting ranking member for yielding and for all the important work he has done on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6416, which includes a number of provisions offered by my colleagues on the committee and beyond to help our veterans. It actually includes two measures that I authored: one requires the GAO to conduct a study to find out the causes of underperforming VBA regional offices; the other extends the authorization for GME slots at the VA. This is a provision that will be especially valuable to UNLV's brand-new medical school, which is hosting its inaugural class this fall. Unfortunately, however, the bill fails to address a major priority of both the VA and veterans themselves, and that is reforming the broken appeals process. Right now, there are 470,000 appeals languishing somewhere in the VA system. Veterans have to wait 2 to 3 years for them to be resolved as these cases churn through the process that Congress hasn't updated since the 1980s. If we don't act now, we will soon be telling our veteran constituents that they are going to have to wait 10 years before their appeals can be resolved, and it will be the fault of this Congress.…”