Funding for Veterans

FUNDING FOR VETERANS -- (House of Representatives - July 13, 2005)

(Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the cornerstone at the Department of Veterans Affairs from the time of Abraham Lincoln has read: ``To care for them who shall have borne the battle, their widows, and their orphans.'' Why can this administration not keep that promise?

Veterans who have served our country and are now coming home, and the World War II, Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf War vets who are aging, are lined up, over 50,000 currently waiting to get into the system. Our doctors and nurses are stressed out.

We know we need $1 billion additional funds for veterans health care. We seem to be able to find money for everything else in the world, but the administration cannot get it right, or does not want to get it right on veterans care. A couple of weeks ago they said they did not need any more money. Then, yesterday, they said, oh, wait, maybe we need $300 million, when their own chairman that they took off the committee 2 years ago, robbing him of his distinguished career here in public service to veterans, told us we needed $1 billion, and they ripped him off the committee.

That is really wrong. It is not meeting our commitments to those on whom our freedom rests. And do my colleagues know what? It is having a major impact on our ability to recruit in our Guard, Reserve and Army, because they do not believe that this country will keep the promise that we have had enshrined since Lincoln . . . to care for those who have borne the battle.

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