David Obey: “Let me state once more that I find somewhat disingenuous concerns expressed about the so-called delay that this process…”

“Let me state once more that I find somewhat disingenuous concerns expressed about the so-called delay that this process will provide for veterans health care. I would like to know where that same concern was when last year the now-minority party never even passed a Military Construction bill. Last year, they completed their session, they walked out of town, shut the doors and said good-bye, and they never passed any bill whatsoever to provide veterans health care. So we took over in January, and the very first action we took was to clean up that mess and add over $3 billion to veterans health care. That was our top priority. And then we followed it up in the regular appropriation bill by adding again more than $3 billion. So I will take a backseat to no one in terms of our expression of concern for veterans. But let me say, we're not just going to take care of veterans as long as they wear the uniform. We're also going to try to take care of their kids' needs for a decent college education. We're going to try to take care of their families' needs in terms of medical research. We're going to try to take care of their housing needs. We're going to try to take care to see that there's decent law enforcement so they can live in communities where kids can actually grow up into adulthood. As the gentleman from Ohio said, we're going to treat veterans as a whole person. That's the purpose of trying to pass all of these bills.”