Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment I have regarding the St. Albans VA Hospital in New York. First of all, this is clearly a bipartisan bill. I have the support of my good friends Peter King and Michael Grimm of New York to stop the enhanced lease process for the St. Albans VA in my district. There is rarely a time that you have an issue where everybody has come together, and, clearly, here is an issue where members of the community and the veterans have spoken with one voice to say that what is being proposed there is against the best wishes of the veterans and the needs of the veterans and against the wishes of the community, basically changing the whole complexity of the community so that the people that live there would have a terrible injustice and disservice. Now, I know that the EUL process works in certain areas because part of it is supposed to be where the EUL process works with the community and veterans and everybody agreeing and working together. That is not the case in this scenario. In this scenario, we have veterans from all over--in fact, we have the Queens County Council of VFWs. We have the Vietnam Vets of America. We have the New York Vets Advocacy Group. We have the Department of New York District 1 VFW, United Council for Veterans Rights, Nassau County VFW, Vets Helping Vets, Inc., all of whom are supportive of this amendment saying that this is not in the best interests of veterans.…”