Joe Cunningham: “the thing, I guess, that irks me the most, some of the Members on the other side come from the liberal left. They do not…”

“the thing, I guess, that irks me the most, some of the Members on the other side come from the liberal left. They do not support the military. They vote against defense bills. They vote against defense supplementals, which protect our men and women and gives them the equipment and things they need to survive to do their job and come back alive. Many of these same Members give a cry for the veterans that we want to increase above budget, we want to increase that, because they know they vote. We want them to come back alive. When the Democrats had control of this House, they cut the military COLAs. They cut veterans' COLAs. They increased Social Security tax. They increased the tax on the veterans and the military. And cut their health care, VFW and American Legion chastised the Democrats because they not only just level funded it or reduced it, they gutted it. And I still have the articles in my office about how the Democrats did not come up to speed on the health care for the veterans. Since we took the majority over the last few years, we have increased health care over 60 percent. Subvention was my bill for the military, TRICARE for everybody. Another thing last night where they said, well, the Republicans did not vote to take care of our National Guard, they sign a contract, Mr. Speaker. When one goes into the National Guard or Reserve, they are a citizen soldier.…”