Mike Rounds

I sincerely appreciate the efforts of your staff to get me this information, which I provided last night to the South Dakota veterans who requested my help.

Will you commit to me today that you will review the Department's procedures and fix this unacceptable procedure?

The role and responsibility of the United States Congress, the role and responsibility of the executive branch

I intend to submit a couple of questions for the record.

You have been very careful, and I have appreciated the fact that you have done your best to be apolitical in this regard.

If that is found not to be the case, and if this really is to the point where it is not doing what was expected, I presume we will hold them accountable and that we will find either a fix for it or we will count our losses and actually get…

I think it points out--I recognize that any time you move to a new system you have a learning curve, but part of the learning curve requires integrity in the data results.

Individuals that mess with that, and intentionally dishonor that responsibility, they make the lives of veterans at risk.

I appreciate it, and I think this is going to work just fine the way that we are doing it.

I really do appreciate the bipartisan way in which we have tried to build a rural America together.

Our bill will increase Federal share for operating assistance in areas with high transit dependency.

Rural communities simply cannot meet the local matching requirements to effectively invest in public transit that these communities desperately need.

Senator Smith and I have worked on this in the past, and more specifically, we partnered together on legislation called the 'Native American Housing Affordability Act'.

I think that tying hands on discretionary money may not be the best use for addressing our needs on the ground.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us today.

Let me just begin, though, by thanking the Chair. Senator Smith and I are not only working on housing issues, we are working on a number of our rural areas.

The last thing that any of us should want, at least any of us should want to see is a global banking system that is run by the Chinese Government.

Flood occurs in South Dakota just like it does in other parts along the coast.

I think part of the long-term plan on this should be to allow that State insurance commissioner--because I agree totally with Mr. Ellis.

I really do believe that we have to have a good, solid National Flood Insurance Program in place.

Native American housing issues are critically important to my constituents.

I do think that it is not unreasonable for us to ask for a plan to try to take care of that backlog.

We hear all of our separate members here in front of us all talking about the very serious challenges that we have regarding the People's Republic of China.

At the same time, you have both Russia and China, as you have indicated, both looking at our very open society and the way that we not only are self-critical, which is appropriate, where we try to make ourselves a more perfect union.

They look at the United States as someone, an organization that they would love to have as an ally, as a friend, as a partner in business, and working in humanitarian efforts as well.