Kirk Watson: “I stand here outraged because I am asked to vote for a bill that would give $87 billion as a grant to a country that has…”

“I stand here outraged because I am asked to vote for a bill that would give $87 billion as a grant to a country that has billions of barrels of oil buried underground in reserve. At the same time, we have cut veterans services. I am outraged. I am hurt, because our POW Shoshanna Johnson, the first African American female ever to be a prisoner of war, was disregarded and given 30 percent disability benefit. Oh, yes, Jessica Lynch got 80 percent. We should be ashamed. This young woman spent 22 days as a captive. She told me that twice a week they would bring her a little bowl of water to wash with. She is going to leave the Service, and what does she have to look forward to? She was shot through both of her ankles, and they are only going to award her 30 percent disability. Is that the way we treat our service personnel as veterans? Is that why we said to them, go into the Service, be all that you can be? We sent them over there in harm's way, and they served us well. And now they are coming home, and we are not serving them well, we are not serving her well. But we can give a country thousands of miles away our hard-earned tax dollars. There is something incredibly wrong with that. I do not care what you snuck into the bill at the eleventh hour. I understand the money for California's fires, how cynical, is in this bill. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. So I am voting no. My veterans know I support them, my military people know I support them.”