Protecting Our Veterans

Floor Speech

(Mr. McNERNEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. McNERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call on my Republican colleagues to focus on the things that the American people sent us here to do. Today, I want to talk about protecting our veterans.

We owe it to our veterans to do everything we can to restore their confidence in the VA health care system. The plan announced Monday by the VA is a step in the right direction, but we must do much more.

I stand on behalf of the veterans in my district. They are still waiting too long and driving too far to see a doctor and waiting far too long for their claims and appeals to be processed. We need to see Congress spend its time getting to the bottom of the VA's dysfunction and giving the VA leadership the tools they need to fix these problems.

This is something we should do right now, instead of spending time on yet another series of politically motivated hearings on Benghazi. I call on the Republican leadership to use our House resources to investigate the real causes of the delays and work to find real solutions that will serve our veterans. That is a plan the whole House could get behind.

Source