Political Quotes

“While I understand the imperative of balancing the budget, an across-the-board amendment that sets an artificial ceiling for all discretionary spending is not the solution. If Sessions-McCaskill is adopted, the Senate will be forced to slash funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs and its related agencies--including Arlington National Cemetery--by $1.1 billion below the requested level. If we take medical care off the table--and I for one am not willing to cut medical care for vets--we put every other VA program at risk, including claims processing, medical and mental health research, and hospital and clinic maintenance and renovation. This would translate into an $862 million cut below this year's appropriation for non medical care VA programs. We are talking about a serious funding shortfall for essential VA programs. This year, the VA's budget request includes $460 million over fiscal year 2010 to hire more than 4,000 new claims processors.”