[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 11, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5253-H5254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SHORTCHANGING VETERANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am a new Member of this body, I was 
just sworn in in January, and as a new Member there is a certain awe to 
this Chamber, a certain awe to the legislative process and the idea of 
priorities. You come into this body with the notion of certain 
priorities that are not Democratic, they are not Republican but they 
are priorities of the American people.
  Unfortunately, it did not take very long for me to recognize that we 
all do not share the same priorities. We can talk about tax cuts, and 
we can talk about deficits, and we can talk about our debt; but you 
just do not have tax cuts without some reaction somewhere down the line 
in the budget, and I wanted to speak tonight to share with the American 
people and share with my colleagues my own personal experience that I 
had over the last few weeks, really since Memorial Day, back in my 
district, which is northeastern Ohio, Youngstown and Akron, Ohio, and 
everywhere in between, the cities of Niles and Warren, where there is a 
strong concentration of veterans.
  The reason I rise tonight is to share for the record the feelings, 
the emotions of the people back in my district. Let me just say, quite 
frankly, that they are tired of the public relations gimmicks, they are 
tired of the press conferences, they are tired of the salutations to 
the veterans. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, their budgets are being cut 
for the veterans, we are not able to service all the veterans that are 
beginning to move into the VA system, and we are spending our tax 
money, and borrowing more money, to give back, when we are cutting 
short what the veterans deserve.
  About 3 months ago or so we passed a resolution out of this body 
saying that we have unequivocal support and appreciation for our 
troops. Unequivocal. But for the veterans, we are going to cut your 
budget.
  We just had a Committee on Veterans Affairs meeting. I have been 
fortunate to serve on the Committee on Veterans Affairs. Here are the 
President's recommendations to save money at the VA: first, annual fees 
for some Category 7 veterans; annual fees for all Category 8 veterans; 
the co-pay went from just a couple of dollars to $7 for prescription 
drugs, and now it is going to go, I believe the proposal is, from $7 to 
$15.
  Mr. Speaker, I think in this country we are beginning to recognize 
that the leadership down here is not addressing the problems of our 
veterans. We are not taking care of those people who we sent to hell, 
where they lost limbs, had their health damaged for the rest of their 
lives. And now one proposal is to say if your disability is service-
related under 30 percent, that we are no longer going to cover you.

[[Page H5254]]

  Where are the priorities in this Chamber, where are the priorities in 
this country, when we stop respecting our veterans? That is the 
question that we have, that is the question that the American people 
want answered, and that is what the veterans in the 17th Congressional 
District want answered. When did we stop respecting our soldiers?
  We pass resolutions, we thank, we do press conferences, we turn the 
PR machines on; but meanwhile, we have veterans that we have not taken 
care of. The ones I can speak of in northeast Ohio are extremely upset. 
We talk about tax cuts; but as Tom Friedman talked about today in The 
New York Times, the reality is, it is service cuts, and, unfortunately, 
in America we have shown that the priorities are not the veterans.
  I had an old law school professor that said follow the money and you 
will follow the priorities. The money is being cut from the veterans, 
and that shows us that the priorities here in this body and in this 
country are not for the veterans, but they are for those people who are 
going to be getting the big tax cuts. It is not a Democrat or 
Republican thing, and we are all for tax cuts, we all want to give 
money back, but not at the expense of the veterans who have fought to 
give us the freedoms that we enjoy today.

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