John Spratt: “let me quickly point out that this should come as no surprise. The President's budget for 2005 cut veterans appropriated…”

“let me quickly point out that this should come as no surprise. The President's budget for 2005 cut veterans appropriated funding $248 million below the Congressional Budget Office estimate of what was needed to keep pace for inflation in 2005 and $13.4 billion below current services over 5 years. For 2006, the President's budget called the even deeper cuts. Excluding the proposal to impose new and unrealistic fees, it cut funding for veterans appropriated programs $759 million below current services necessary to keep pace with inflation, $18 billion below inflation over 5 years. Democrats have offered alternatives every year on this floor that would have covered the shortfalls the V.A. has identified. In 2005, we offered a budget resolution with $2.5 billion more than the President requested. In 2006, we offered a budget resolution with $2.3 billion over the President's request. And every year the outyear funding that we proposed was also substantially more than they proposed, and that is a problem we are not even discussing tonight because consistently what has happened here is there has been a little plus-up in the near term and a flattening out in the long term, and we inherit the consequences and episodes like this. If we had passed the resolutions that Democrats supported and brought to this floor, we would not be here tonight discussing this bill.”