Political Quotes

“Madam President, South Dakota's veterans and the Hot Springs community are currently celebrating the VA's announcement that it has begun the process of rescinding its order to close the Hot Springs VA facility. This was a hard-fought victory in a battle that we weren't always sure we would win. It started almost a decade ago, in 2011, when the Obama administration announced its plans to realign-- when I say ``realign,'' reclose--the Hot Springs VA facility. I was well aware of what the Hot Springs facility means to South Dakota veterans and to the entire Hot Springs community, and I determined that there wasn't going to be a closure if I could help it. I knew that closing the Hot Springs facility would put accessible care out of the reach of a lot of rural and Tribal veterans--not only rural and Tribal South Dakota veterans but rural and Tribal veterans from neighboring Wyoming and Nebraska who depend on the Hot Springs facility for care. Traveling to Rapid City and Fort Meade for care, as the VA proposed, would be a real hardship, if not an impossibility, for many of these veterans. I also strongly disagreed with moving not only medical care but the vital Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Program from Hot Springs. Not only would this put the program out of reach of some veterans, I believed it was also a mistake to remove a tremendously effective program from the place where it has been so successful and try to reconstitute it elsewhere.…”