Beto O'Rourke

I do not understand--I would not expect you to tell me that everything is okay, because it is--definitely not.

Clearly, what we have done has not been enough in regards to what action we have taken to deter Russia and election meddling.

We are getting a better understanding of it. I would not characterize it as a good picture at this point, not satisfactory to me.

I think we all want to respect the process and the investigation and certainly want to respect the ability for those families who lost a service member to learn the findings of the report first.

I hope that this committee and you will appear before us in the future so that we can have that appropriate oversight and accountability, lessons learned, so we can apply them going forward.

We know that for those Veterans who have an other than honorable discharge...tens of thousands of them were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

I am convinced that as we acknowledge the problem that we have, and by your estimate it is 20 Veterans a day every single day are taking their lives.

This is a priority, let's understand what the delta is and we are all going to do to bridge that gap...

You are the first Secretary that I know of, who has made reducing veteran suicide a priority.

I also want to acknowledge Ms. Titus, who is here, who has worked on this in previous Congresses and has really been a champion on this issue.

This is why I love serving on this Committee, the fact that Chairman Roe is here, the fact that Members who are not even on the Committees of jurisdiction have asked to have the privilege of sitting here and being helpful as we try to…

I hope you can get me back something that we can measure and act upon.

Should we be a 1 to 25?

If you don't put a number on it, we can never measure it, we will--

Will veterans who have an other than honorable discharge be eligible for the HUD-VASH voucher program?

During the hearing, HUD stated that it had started a pilot program that allows a certain number of veterans with other than honorable discharges to access the HUD-VASH program.

This has been one of the most helpful panels that has appeared before the house of Veterans Affairs Committee in my five years here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Lynch, a couple of the witnesses on the previous panel, including Mr. Martin from El Paso, mentioned case manager to client ratios that are way out of whack from best practices.

So the point that I took from that, and I will cede to the Chair, is that there are not enough resources dedicated to support services which includes funding the appropriate case manager to client ratio, and it is making it harder for…

One of the last things, I think, Mr. Chairman, that we need to do is make sure that we are hearing from veterans on these proposals.

The printed hearing record remains the official version.

I think Mr. Motley made a really good point about ensuring that we do the right thing for the consumer without overburdening the lender.

I would love to see us, perhaps by the end of this meeting, suggest some commonsense solutions that the VA could either adopt administratively or that we will work on as, literally, an act of Congress, if necessary.

I am looking forward to hearing from those who are here today to testify and answer our questions.

I want to listen to yours. I want to hear what the experts have to say.