Political Quotes

“I rise today also to speak with regard to the work of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee yesterday passed some very critical legislation. It is great to see the chairman and the ranking member and how they worked together side by side--Republican and Democratic colleagues working together to improve the lives of our veterans and truly to begin the process of reforming a broken VA system. More than a year ago, the VA wait list scandal was made public. One of the biggest reasons the problem grew so large was the lack of accountability within the VA. Yesterday, with bipartisan support, we reported out five bills. Among those were two bills focused on bringing accountability to the VA. I would like to talk about that process and about what I learned as a freshman Senator, stepping in and watching-- after listening to all of the stories about how the Senate was dysfunctional and things were not working right; Republicans would not work with Democrats, and Democrats would not work with Republicans--how Chairman Isakson and Ranking Member Blumenthal worked their way through these bills and unanimously passed them out of committee. I also watched as some members offered amendments.…”