Veterans' health care is an ongoing expense of war. In other words, VA health care is not welfare.

VA health care is something that veterans have earned through their service to this country.

I want to share another saying with my colleague that came from Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin said, ``If you act like sheep, the wolves will eat you.'' Now, I say to my Republican colleagues, if your leadership could do this to…

I think it is time for some straight talk about what is being done for veterans. There may be some veterans listening tonight. I hope there are. There may be some family members of veterans listening or probably just Americans who may not…

Reclaiming my time, I do think this year is different than in past years, because in past years, this House is controlled by Republicans. That means every committee has a Republican as the Chair of that committee. For the last 4 years, the…

reclaiming my time, people can listen to his words and make their own judgments about what he has said. I, quite frankly, think it is shameful.

But much of that increase is coming from the veterans themselves because they are calculating as a part of their budgeting process the $250 annual user fee that they are going to charge veterans. They are calculating the increase that they…

The leader of the Nation's largest military veterans organization reacted strongly to the effects that President Bush's budget plan will have on veterans. He called it a smokescreen to raise revenue at the expense of veterans. 'This is not…

Here is a member of this administration blaming veterans, saying that because of their benefits they are somehow interfering or taking away from this Nation's ability to defend itself. I mean, that is really pathetic. It is pathetic. And…

on January 3 of this year, 10 national veterans organizations wrote a letter to Speaker Hastert. Those 10 organizations were the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the Paralyzed Veterans…

my Republican colleagues are willing to stand on this floor in support of nominee Gonzales, but the sad fact is they were not willing to stand up and support their own colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). The gentleman…

But he was removed. And a senior GOP aid referred to these veterans by saying, ``If they think coming up here to argue for Chris Smith is going to help Chris Smith, they are crazy.'' Well, the Republicans in this House may think the…

I think there is a very good reason for us to talk about the past and to remember what has happened, because the very people who are responsible for having made these erroneous decisions in the past are the same people who are in positions…

The fact is this: that the only people sacrificing for this war are the soldiers and the people who love them. The President is not sacrificing for this war. The corporate world is not sacrificing for this war. Those of us who sit in the…

I rise in support of S. 1194, the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act. As the sponsor of H.R. 2387, the companion House bill to S. 1194, I am very pleased to have this legislation on the floor, and I would like to thank…

I have a message for America's veterans and the families who love them. As reported in Sunday's Washington Post, Staff Sergeant Gene Westbrook, 35, of Lawton, Oklahoma, was deployed to Iraq in January as a drill sergeant, sent to train…

tonight there is going to be a debate in Cleveland, Ohio, my home State. I believe probably millions and millions of Americans will be watching. One of the things I hope they listen for is a question that I feel certain the Vice President…

On this question, this ninth question, I think the President is partly right. I think he is mostly wrong because as my friend from Washington has indicated, the people in Iraq simply do not want us there. All the opinion polls indicate…

The President has made every attempt to convince the American people that the war in Iraq is the war against terror, and he has tried to blur the distinctions between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He has tried to imply that al Qaeda…

What we are talking about is quite serious, it involves life and death, it involves the future of our Nation, and the American people need to be paying attention, because this war could drag on for 50 years or more. We have unleashed a…

I like that suggestion from my friend from Washington State, that we need to convey to Iraqis that we do not intend to stay there. A second suggestion I would like to make is we need to convey to the world community that this is their…

I know something about body armor. There have been accusations that one of the candidates for president voted against an $87 billion supplemental request, somehow deprived our soldiers of body armor. I know something about this because…

I would hope every parent in this country would ask themselves, as they contemplate this war and the situation in which we find ourselves, do they believe that this President's leadership is such that his wisdom, his maturity, his judgment…

The fact is that this question points to the fact that the civilian leadership within this administration really discounted the professional military advice coming to us from the military folks who had given their lives to studying and…

Why do we stand here and talk about this subject late at night? The reason is because the people who have made the decisions which have brought us to this current situation, this mess that we face in Iraq, where we have lost well over…