Political Quotes

“I'm proud of this budget because it continues on the great work that we did last year after years and years of chronic underfunding of the veterans health care system. We added $13 billion in funding for the VA, which is the largest increase in the 77-year history of the VA, and that was great work. And we are following that up this year by adding $4.9 billion in increased funding and including steady increases over each of the next 5 years. This budget is true to our American veterans. In contrast, the President's budget, which does include a modest $1.7 billion increase this year, it decreases funding in real dollars over the next 4 years, and over the 5-year period, contains a cut in veterans health care spending. And there are 120,000 new veterans entering the system this year. Is there anyone in this body that thinks that health care costs aren't going to go up, that the number of veterans isn't going to go up, people entering the VA health care system? And instead of following the President's lead and cutting veterans health care spending, we're increasing spending to the largest levels in history. It's endorsed by the VFW, the American Legion, the Vietnam Veterans of America, just to name a few. And this funding means that we're going to clear up the 500,000 case backlog that currently exists in the VA due to that chronic underfunding that took place over the past several years before we increased funding last year.”