Carter Remarks at FY24 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill Full Committee Markup

Hearing

Good morning. I'm honored to present today the first of the FY24 appropriations bills.

The Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill is special. We provide funds for our military and for service members and their families. We also provide funds for veterans' programs and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Finally, we provide funds to the agencies that honor our military and veterans, such as Arlington National Cemetery.

The bill provides almost $800 million above the budget request for military construction and family housing. With this funding, we address many unfunded requirements and provide additional funding for the services to better manage privatized housing.

I want to highlight the funding in the bill to counter the Chinese Communist Party's aggression in the Pacific, which I believe we should all support. Notably, we also direct VA to improve services for veterans in the Pacific. We need to do better to honor their service to the nation.

We should be careful that we don't let our debates about budget categories and funding allocations confuse the American people. And we should ensure that we don't use veterans for political purposes. They are far too important to our country to do that.

In closing, let me express my thanks to all of you who helped make this a better bill. I especially want to thank my ranking member, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, and Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member DeLauro for their support and assistance to the subcommittee.

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