[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 17, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1615
                   MEETING THE NEEDS OF OUR VETERANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the veterans in 
my district, Congressional District 1 in the State of Nevada. I 
represent Las Vegas, Nevada. Let me tell my colleagues a little bit 
about it. I have got the fastest growing district in the United States. 
I have the fastest growing veterans population in the United States. 
There are only three States that have an increasing veterans population 
in this country: Florida, Arizona and the State of Nevada. A 
preponderance of those veterans that are moving to those three States 
are coming to the State of Nevada. Let me tell my colleagues what the 
problems are.
  First, I will tell my colleagues during my campaign the veterans took 
me under their wing and educated me about the problems that they are 
facing. We developed a relationship that transcends politics, and we 
become very close family, we become friends, and I have come here to be 
an advocate on their behalf.
  In the State of Nevada, in southern Nevada, we have a wonderful new 
veterans' clinic, we have a wonderful new hospital, we have wonderful 
state-of-the-art equipment, and we have a brand new cemetery.
  Let me tell my colleagues what we do not have. We do not have enough 
doctors, and there is not enough funding to hire doctors. I have got 
incidents after incidents of older veterans who come to the clinic 
because they have medical problems and they cannot get in to see a 
doctor. I have one incident of a veteran that has a lump, and when he 
went to the veterans' clinic to have a biopsy, he was told that he 
could not see a doctor, he could not get that biopsy for 5 months. 
Nobody, nobody, should have to go through the pain and anguish of not 
knowing what their medical condition is, particularly a veteran who has 
given so much and sacrificed so much on behalf of this country.
  We do not have enough nurses in Nevada. I do not have enough 
technicians to work that wonderful new equipment. So the medical 
equipment that would help these veterans sits idle because there is no 
one that knows how to work the equipment.
  I have a wonderful new cemetery, as I stated, but let me tell my 
colleagues I do not have enough equipment and there is not enough 
personnel to bury those veterans that are dying in southern Nevada, and 
as our veterans population ages, as those veterans keep coming to 
retire in southern Nevada, what am I to tell those families that are 
suffering because they have just lost a loved one? Do I tell that 
family during their most horrible time of need that we cannot bury 
their loved one because we do not have enough personnel at the 
cemetery? We do not have enough equipment to do this last act of honor 
for this great veteran? I cannot in good conscience do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not have enough money for counselors, so when I 
have veterans that are coming to southern Nevada that need counseling 
because they have got a drug abuse problem, because they are suffering 
from alcoholism or they are roaming the streets of southern Nevada, 
downtown Las Vegas, because they are homeless that we do not have 
enough caring in this country, we do not have enough concern for these 
veterans to make sure that we do not have adequate counseling and help 
in their time of need?
  The President's flat line budget that he submitted to Congress was 
wholly inadequate to serve the needs of the veterans in this country. I 
am opposed to it, but I fear that the meager increase that we have 
proposed here in Congress is also inadequate to meet the needs of our 
veterans in this country. The $1.9 billion that has been passed by the 
Committee on Veterans' Affairs, a committee that I sit on and am 
honored to serve on, will not begin to make a dent in the problems that 
we are suffering and we are facing in southern Nevada.
  I ask all of my colleagues to join with me to vote in favor of the 
alternative proposal, one that is supported by all of the veterans 
groups across our great country, to add $3.2 billion to the President's 
budget so that we can finally provide the services that our veterans 
justly deserve, that we have a responsibility to provide and one that 
all Americans who owe these great veterans our lives, our liberties and 
our American way of life. Let us unite together and help our veterans 
in their hour of need.

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