[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1756-1760]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dent). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, for some time now, several of my colleagues 
and myself have come to the floor of the House to address issues 
surrounding our national policy in Iraq, and tonight we intend to have 
a few comments in that regard, particularly in regard to the budget and 
how the budget refers to our ongoing efforts in Iraq. And I was 
thinking about that in combination with the President's suggested 
budget the other day.
  That same day I was looking at the President's budget, I was reading 
a story about 3 GIs who were walking through a town in central Iraq, 
and they were trying to alert people about essentially the polling 
activity and the election activity that was going to go on, but they 
knew they were in a very hostile environment when they were doing so. 
And a group of them, about nine soldiers were walking through an area, 
and they were just sort of handing out leaflets to folks about the 
election activity to let them know where they could vote and what kind 
of security was going to be provided, and a shot rang out. The leader 
of the platoon was shot and went down, and they immediately started to 
receive fire from all points of the compass.
  The thing that struck me is that it said what immediately happened is 
two of the soldiers who were near the fellow who was shot immediately, 
instead of taking cover, jumped up and sort of literally sort of 
shielded the injured GI with themselves as they returned fire. That is 
just one of the many acts of heroism that our troops have been involved 
with in Iraq.
  What it made me think about was, to ask the question frankly, whether 
back home we are matching the responsibility and the values and the 
heroism that are going on in Iraq. Because whatever you think about the 
Iraq policy, and I voted against the Iraq war. I thought the 
President's assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass 
destruction was overstated, that his assertion that Saddam was 
responsible for September 11 was inaccurate, and I voted against the 
war. But, nonetheless, all of us respect what our GIs, Marines, and 
other service personnel are doing in Iraq.
  And the question I was just thinking about is whether or not their 
courage and responsibility and the values, American values they are 
displaying in Iraq are sort of met on the domestic side here in 
Washington, D.C., particularly in regard to the budget that this 
administration has just proposed to the people in the U.S. Congress.
  I was thinking about how you would test the budget that the President 
has proposed against the values that we are seeing by our troops in 
Iraq. And in thinking about it, it became pretty clear to me that there 
are some real questions about that, about whether this budget really is 
up to snuff and up to the level of character that we have seen of our 
people in Iraq.
  Let me give the first example that comes to mind. We now have 
literally

[[Page 1757]]

thousands of our sons and daughters, husband and wives coming home 
injured from Iraq, some very, very seriously. In fact, one of the most 
disturbing things about this war is, because of our excellent medical 
care, we are actually having people come back from Iraq with more 
devastating injuries than other wars because we have been successful in 
saving lives. But people are coming back with very, very debilitating 
injuries. And they are coming back to a system that we would like to 
see is eminently successful in treating them, the veterans health care 
system.
  The first question I think we ought to ask about the President's 
budget is does the President's budget in the veterans health care 
system meet the heroism and the commitment and the sacrifice that our 
troops have put on the line in Iraq?
  So when I looked at the President's budget I was absolutely 
flabbergasted to see what the budget proposal from this administration 
has in mind for our injured people coming home from Iraq. Now, one 
would think that an administration that took our country into war in 
Iraq, sent our sons and daughters into combat, knew they were coming 
back by the thousands with missing arms, shattered faces, difficult 
trauma to deal with, one would sort of think that the budget would rush 
to their aid and embrace them with the arms of Americans who so much 
have embraced our troops and their spirits and their prayers since the 
war began.
  One would think that the spirit that I saw at an old car wash being 
organized in Redmond, Washington that people had to send money and 
gifts to troops to help them through their trials, one would think that 
that same spirit would be imbued in the budget put forth by the 
President. I must sadly report that in looking at the President's 
budget, this budget stiffs our heroes coming back from Iraq. It cuts 
their benefits. It increases what veterans have to pay to get medical 
care they should have for free. It reduces our national commitment to 
veterans in meaningful ways. And I can reach no other conclusion than 
that the budget falls well short of our national commitment to our 
veterans.
  This President who started a war in Iraq, a war that has caused such 
debilitating injuries, has proposed to make our veterans coming home 
from battle pay more out of their pocket for prescriptions and to get 
medical care. How is that consistent with the values of America? How is 
that consistent with what we expect when we want to honor our troops, 
to dishonor them by cutting the veterans health care system and making 
veterans pay more out of their pocket, a co-pay for their health care?
  Where is the honor, I ask the White House, in cutting the benefits 
available for our troops coming home from Iraq? Where is the honor in 
requiring our veterans to pony up $250 who are in certain categories 
even to get their health care? Where is that family value?
  It seems to me that there ought to be a bipartisan consensus, that 
there ought to be family values, that if you send your son or daughter 
into harm's way for the benefit of your national family, that when they 
come home, if anything, you ought to increase the benefits that we have 
available to these folks. But that is not the case in this President's 
budget, because this President really had to face a choice in this 
budget. It was pretty clear.
  We have over a $400 billion deficit today, and this President really 
had to face a choice between two competing values. One value would be 
to provide for the health care of our veterans. One value would be to 
preserve the President's favored tax cuts for people who earn over 
$400,000 a year.
  Now, in order to at least staunch the red ink which, by the way, this 
does not do because this budget still does not decrease the deficit. It 
increases it. But one way to do it, this budget had to make a choice; 
this budget had to choose between two values. It had to choose between 
the value of honoring our veterans or the value of honoring those folks 
who earn over $400,000 a year and to make their tax cuts they got 
permanent. The President chose to honor that less than half of a 
percent of Americans to make those tax cuts permanent and abandon the 
value of honoring and embracing the health care needs of our veterans.
  Budgets are not just monetary issues. They are statements of values. 
They are statements of what we believe in as a country. They are 
statements of what you hold most dear. And it is clear that this budget 
says that the most dear value that this budget reflects is the value of 
keeping those permanent tax cuts for people earning over $400,000; and 
the people who are coming home from Iraq with missing eyes and 
shattered bodies and shattered psyches and missing limbs, who are 
coming home trying to rebuild their lives, they can just go fish 
according to this budget because they are going to have to pay more to 
get basic health care now.
  Now, I do not think those are the values of America, the values that 
my constituents have, my neighbors have, Republicans or Democrats. 
Because I have to tell you, the Republicans and Democrats that I talk 
to and I represent in my district in Washington State, I think if you 
ask people on the street if it comes to a choice between those two 
things to reduce the deficit, what should you pick, I think it is about 
95 percent would pick to give health care to veterans. But that is not 
a choice this White House made, this administration made; and it is 
sad.
  I hope that we in this Chamber in a bipartisan way can join to 
preserve, defend, and protect those who preserved, defended, and 
protected us, which is our veterans. And it is not being done in this 
budget, and this is a symptom of an illness of this budget in total 
because it has sacrificed numerous values on the cross of making these 
President's tax cuts for people who earn over $400,000 a year, that 
that value trumps everything. It trumps health care for veterans. It 
trumps reduction of the deficit. It trumps cleaning up nuclear wastes 
that are going into the Columbia River in my neck of the woods. It 
trumps cleaning up other Superfund sites around the country. It trumps 
enforcing our clean air laws so that our children do not get asthma.
  This President puts that value above every other value that we have, 
Americans now have to have a chance to express in this budget; and it 
is sad and it is wrong and it is not consistent with the American 
values, I believe, on a bipartisan basis are held.
  Now, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) has joined us, who has 
been an absolute stalwart talking about the importance of maintaining 
veterans benefits.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from 
Washington State.
  This is a serious time in the history of our Nation. We are facing a 
lot of problems. We have lost well over 1,440 lives in Iraq. We have 
had literally thousands, 10,000 or more seriously injured. And 
yesterday we received the President's budget. And a part of that budget 
had to do with veterans health care.
  Now, at a time when we have lost so much and are continuing to lose 
soldiers in Iraq, when the death benefit for the family of a lost 
soldier I think is currently $12,500, the administration had indicated 
that they would support increasing that up to $100,000; there is no 
mention of that in the President's budget.

                              {time}  2215

  There is no mention of that. There is no budgeting for this increased 
benefit for the families who have lost loved ones in this war. That 
puzzles me. But there are other things in this budget that puzzle me 
regarding veterans.
  People listening to this, I would say to my friend from Washington 
State, may interpret this as just partisan bickering, and so I would 
like to share a press release that came from the Veterans of Foreign 
Wars. This is not a political group. This is a group devoted solely to 
trying to advocate for veterans who have participated in foreign wars.
  The heading of this press release is ``The President's 2006 Budget 
Disappoints the VFW,'' and it begins, ``'The President has delivered a 
disappointing funding request for the Department of Veterans Affairs,' 
said the

[[Page 1758]]

leader of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S., in reaction to the 
administration's fiscal year 2006 budget request that was released 
today.''
  I will not read the entire letter, but I will read parts of it. ``Two 
key issues are the proposals to charge a $250 enrollment fee that would 
impact approximately 2.2 million veterans and a prescription copayment 
that would more than double from $7 a prescription to $15'' a 
prescription.
  It continues, ``The VFW is concerned that the enrollment fee and the 
prescription copayment increases will cost some veterans thousands of 
extra dollars in health care expenses, while driving others away from 
the VA.
  ``The message this budget communicates,'' the VFW says, ``is that 
part of the Federal Government's deficit will be balanced on the backs 
of military veterans.''
  Listen to this. This is amazing. The budget proposal from the 
President slashes $351 million from veterans' nursing homes that will 
result in 28,000 fewer veterans getting nursing home care, and it 
reduces State grants from $114 million down to just $12 million. It 
cuts $4 million from medical and prosthetic research. At a time when we 
are having soldiers getting their arms and legs blown off in Iraq, this 
President sends us a budget that cuts by $4 million money for 
prosthetic research.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask if the experience in Ohio is 
the same as it is in Washington. The gentleman has just read quite an 
extensive list of multimillion dollar cuts to the services that the VA 
system can provide for veterans. That may seem like abstract numbers, 
but I want to ask my colleague about this.
  In Washington State, veterans now, in the existing budget before the 
cuts, are waiting months and months and months to get in for basic 
health care because even the existing budget does not allow them to get 
help. And so I talked to World War II veterans who literally are 
waiting months, and these are people in their upper 70s, to get basic 
health care with the existing budget.
  This budget purports to cut multiple millions of dollars to reduce 
that, to increase the waiting line so when a person needs to go in to 
get various body parts checked, from their urinary tract to their 
cardiac function, they are in a waiting line. The people who went on 
the sands of Iwo Jima, they did not want to go to the back of the line. 
They went out the front of the boat. Now this budget is going to make 
the waiting longer.
  That is the experience in Washington. I just wonder what the 
experience is in Ohio.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, well, I think what the gentleman is 
describing is true all over the country. It is less problematic in 
certain areas and much more problematic in other areas.
  I just shared a press release from the Veterans of Foreign Wars 
regarding the President's budget. I have here a second press release 
from the national commander of the American Legion regarding the 
President's budget.
  It begins, ``The leader of the Nation's largest military veterans 
organization reacted strongly to the effects that President Bush's 
budget plan will have on veterans. He called it a smokescreen to raise 
revenue at the expense of veterans.
  `` `This is not acceptable,' said Thomas P. Cadmus, national 
commander of the 2.7 million member American Legion. `It is nothing 
more than a health care tax designed to increase revenue at the expense 
of veterans who served their country.' ''
  This is not the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), the Democrat, 
or the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the Democrat, speaking. 
This is the national commander of the American Legion.
  The fact is that when the President first came into office, most 
veterans were required to pay $2 for a 30-day prescription. The 
President increased that almost immediately after coming to office from 
$2 to $7, and in this budget, he is asking that the price to veterans 
be increased from $7 to $15.
  As I have said before on the floor of this House, many of our 
veterans take 10 or more prescriptions per month, and so the President 
wants to increase their burden. The President's budget also calls for 
an annual $250 user fee that many veterans would have to pay just to 
use a VA facility. This is unconscionable.
  Here is what we have: Young Americans fighting this war, many losing 
their lives, many more being terribly injured, coming back home; and 
what they are going to find is a VA health care system that is being 
woefully underfunded by the President who chose to send them to war. 
That is a serious matter, but it is not just my opinion. It is the 
opinion of the major veterans organizations in this Nation.
  I do not think this is an accident. I think this is a planned effort 
on the part of the administration to significantly reduce the money 
they are putting into VA health care.
  I want to share with my friend from Washington State something that 
he may already know, but for 24 years one of our colleagues, a 
Republican Member, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), has been 
a member of the Committee on Veterans Affairs. For 24 years he has 
served on that committee. For the last 4 years, he was the Chair of 
that committee.
  The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is, in my judgment, the 
most prolife Member of this body. I do not always agree with the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), but I admire him as a man of 
principle and character and courage.
  The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) was recently removed, not 
only as the Chair of the Committee on Veterans Affairs, he was taken 
off the committee altogether after years of service. What had he done 
wrong? Well, apparently it was because he was an advocate for veterans. 
He wanted this President and this leadership in the House of 
Representatives to give adequate funding for VA health care, and so he 
was stripped of his Chair's position and he was removed from the 
committee.
  Think about that. He had been on that committee for almost a quarter 
of a century, and 10 national veterans organizations wrote the 
gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) a letter, urging the Speaker 
to keep Chris Smith as the Chair of the Committee on Veterans Affairs.
  I just want to tell my colleague who those people were and the 
organizations they represent: The executive director of the American 
Legion; the executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars; the 
national adjutant of the Military Order of the Purple Heart; the 
executive director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America; the national 
president of the Vietnam Veterans of America; the executive director of 
the Disabled American Veterans; the national executive director of 
AMVETS; the executive director of the Blinded Veterans Association; the 
executive director of the Jewish War Veterans; and the executive 
director of the Noncommissioned Officers.
  They all signed this letter to Speaker Hastert, and they said in this 
letter, among other things, ``In our view, it would be a tragedy if 
Chris Smith left the chairmanship.''
  They went on to say that ``The unnecessary loss of his leadership, 
knowledge, skill, honesty, passion and work ethic would be a deeply 
disturbing development, not just to us, but to the millions of veterans 
across the country whose lives he has touched.''
  What did Speaker Hastert do? He ignored the plea from these 10 
national veterans organizations. He removed the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Smith) from the chairmanship of the Committee on Veterans 
Affairs because he was an advocate for veterans.
  So I am not surprised that the President's budget woefully underfunds 
VA health care, because I think it was part of the plan; and in my 
judgment, they had to get rid of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Smith) so that they would not have one of their own being critical of 
the President's budget in the VA Committee.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, this is a bit of an unusual thing that a 
Democrat is praising the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the 
former Republican Chair of this committee in the House, and I want to 
just ask this:

[[Page 1759]]

  My perception of this is that here we had a Republican Member who is 
stalwart in attempting to preserve and improve the veterans' health 
care in our country, who was willing to rock the boat to do that, had 
the moral fiber to do that, and was in a sense excommunicated because 
he had the willingness to stand up to people who stood up at 
Guadalcanal and the people who stood up in all of those places whom we 
have had harmed, and he was a bit of hero I believe myself, and I am 
just going to ask my colleague to categorize this.
  I think what the Republican leadership and, by extension, the White 
House, which I have to believe had some knowledge of this, was a slap 
in the face of every veteran in this country. Do you think that is a 
fair characterization?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I think it is. In fact, if I could just 
share something else with my colleague, this is a letter to the Wall 
Street Journal that was written also by Mr. Thomas P. Cadmus, who is 
the national commander of the American Legion, from the national 
American Legion's headquarters, and it criticizes a statement that was 
made by an administration official, Mr. David Chu.
  Who is Mr. David Chu? He is the Pentagon Under Secretary for 
Personnel and Readiness. And Mr. David Chu was quoted as saying that 
``Veterans' pay and benefits are,'' and I am using this word from his 
statement, ``hurtful, hurtful,'' and are, quote, ``taking away from the 
Nation's ability to defend itself.''
  Here is a member of this administration blaming veterans, saying that 
because of their benefits they are somehow interfering or taking away 
from this Nation's ability to defend itself. I mean, that is really 
pathetic. It is pathetic. And the national commander of the American 
Legion wrote this letter to the Wall Street Journal complaining about 
David Chu's statement.
  So what I think we are seeing here is a calculated effort to reduce 
funding for veterans' health care and veterans' benefits, and the 
President, quite frankly, has got to be responsible for this. I mean, 
he is the commander in chief.
  And let me point out something else to my colleague. Right now, when 
a serviceperson loses their life, there is a $12,500 gratuity or 
compensation made available to the survivor, the survivor's spouse or 
to the family.
  Now, we are in the process right now of offering bonuses of up to 
$15,000 for many of our soldiers to get them to enlist.

                              {time}  2230

  In some cases, for Special Operations Forces, we are told they are 
being offered a bonus of up to $150,000 to remain active in the 
military. So a suggestion has been made, and I have signed on to 
legislation, I think probably my friend from Washington State has as 
well, that would increase this death benefit to $100,000. That is 
certainly not enough, but it at least is a reasonable effort on the 
part of this Congress to increase those funds from $12,500.
  I have gone to several funerals in my district, for soldiers who have 
been lost in Iraq. We have lost from the Ohio Sixth Congressional 
District six soldiers already. Two of those men were in their late 30s 
and the others were in their early 20s. So it is quite pathetic, I 
think, that this country would offer the survivors $12,500. And if we 
can increase it up to $100,000, that may be more helpful to the 
families left behind.
  The fact is, there is no mention of this in the President's budget, 
and that really puzzles me. Why is this not accounted for in the 
President's budget that he just released to us?
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think what is 
disappointing about the President not putting it in his budget, is that 
we probably have over 160 or 180 cosponsors of this bill to raise that 
benefit for the families, yet it is still not there. And it is really 
just one of a whole suite of insults for the people coming back from 
Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Do not forget the contributions of our people in Afghanistan who are 
suffering and still dying in Afghanistan.
  What is so troubling to me, and I think a lot of my constituents, are 
two aspects. You have to ask yourself: How could an administration in 
the middle of two wars even think about cutting benefits to veterans? 
How could you possibly do that? I am trying to think, how could there 
be any possible rationale to do that when you have these people coming 
home in such dire straits?
  I think there are two things going on here: One, I suspect that the 
people who are coming up with these cockamamie, unfair, inequitable, I 
am going to call them un-American ideas, maybe that is a stretch but I 
am going to say that, when we are talking about heroes of the American 
Nation? How can you deign to raise copayments, charge them $250, make 
them stand in line longer, make them wait longer to get cardiac care? 
How can you even think about doing that?
  I think one of the things is that these folks who are making a pretty 
good salary, who are in the agencies and working at the White House, 
who are driving a decent car, kind of think, Oh, it is $250. Big deal. 
What is $25 extra for a prescription? Big deal. That is just pocket 
change. Falls out of crumbs or tips at lunch around here in Washington, 
D.C. On K Street, where lobbyists hang out, that is just tip money.
  I think people forget when they try to stick injured GIs with this, 
they forget these folks are just absolutely scraping when they come 
back.
  I saw a story about a family who lost a young father and husband in 
Washington State, and they interviewed the widow, who had four 
children, and they were living in the basement of their parents' house. 
She was trying to get enough to get back to community college to try to 
earn a living to support these four children. It was really a matter of 
feeding and clothing these kids. And $250 is the difference between 
making it and not making it to these folks.
  I think people making these decisions forget that. They just are not 
in touch with that, number one.
  Number two, and this is the basic flaw of the entire budget, I think, 
is that the folks who drafted this budget have a view about our wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan, and their view is that there are only a certain 
very small percentage of Americans who should bear all of the burden of 
these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the view of this 
administration that only those select individuals should take the 
entire weight of this conflict, not only in their physical health and 
whether they live or die but in their fiscal burden as well, and those 
are the people actually serving in the military in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. Nobody else in America should have any bit of sacrifice 
associated with this war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  I do not think that is the American way. And I do not think Americans 
really expect that. Americans believe that it is not only the GIs who 
should be the ones bearing some sacrifice from this endeavor. Yet the 
President wants to take every single dollar we spend there and make it 
deficit spending.
  The part he will not make deficit spending, that he is too 
embarrassed to put on his debt on our grandchildren because he has a 
deficit that has blown through the roof, and it is terribly 
embarrassing, the part he will not make a deficit to put on his debt on 
our grandchildren, he will put on our veterans by cutting their health 
care.
  These are the very people who lost their limbs. He wants them to bear 
all the burden. He does not want to ask anybody else in America to be 
associated with this. And that is wrong.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If my colleague will yield, what the President and 
what the administration will say is that they are increasing funding 
for VA health care, and on the books it looks as if they are. But much 
of that increase is coming from the veterans themselves because they 
are calculating as a part of their budgeting process the $250 annual 
user fee that they are going to charge veterans. They are calculating 
the increase that they are going to get from charging veterans more for 
their prescription drugs, so that will go into the till; and they count 
that as increased funding for VA health care. So, quite frankly,

[[Page 1760]]

they are asking veterans to fund their own health care.
  Now, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), as I said earlier, 
was replaced as Chair of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and we 
have a new Chair who has been quoted as saying that he thinks the VA 
should focus on the core constituency, those with service-connected 
disabilities and the very poor. But, quite frankly, the people that 
they are referring to as higher income can be making as little as 
$22,000 and be considered higher income and be expected to pay this 
$250 annual user fee and the increased cost for medications.
  Now, if you are making as little as $22,000 a year and you have 
expenses and you have a lot of medical needs and you need a lot of 
prescription drugs, then you are not high income.
  Folks in this Chamber, I do not know exactly how much we make, quite 
frankly, but it is over $150,000 a year. We are pretty well paid here. 
The American people need to know that. We are pretty well paid. But 
what about the veteran who is making a little over $20,000 a year? And 
the people in this Chamber have the gall to say that those veterans 
ought to pay more? They ought to pay more?
  It is, quite frankly, shameful. And that is why we are here. That is 
why we are talking about this. Because the veterans of this country 
need to know what the truth is.
  Now, the President said in his State of the Union address not many 
days ago, standing at that podium right up there, he said, ``Society is 
measured by how it treats the weak and the vulnerable.'' We have an 
aging veteran population in this country. More and more veterans are in 
need of nursing home care, and what does this budget do, the 
President's budget? It cuts funding for veterans' nursing home care. At 
a time when the need is increasing, there is less money for it.
  It is, quite frankly, shameful. There is no other word that is 
adequate to describe it. It is a shameful set of circumstances that we 
are facing. I would hope that the veterans of this country would 
understand what is being done to their health care system.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let me add that 
it is not just the veterans of this country that we think should be 
rightfully outraged about this insult to veterans. It is also those of 
us who have our liberty because of veterans.
  I did something a little unusual for me; I actually watched the Super 
Bowl this year. It turned out to be a good game. It was very, very 
unique in Super Bowl history. I think the wrong team won, but still a 
good game. And the most telling commercial to me, which they always 
talk a lot about, the Super Bowl commercials, was the scene where you 
are like in a train station waiting room or an airport waiting room and 
you see people milling about, and then they all of a sudden somebody 
started clapping. You cannot see what they are clapping at, at first. 
Then the clapping rolls and pretty soon everybody in the room is 
clapping. Then you see these troops coming by, we assume coming back 
from Iraq or Afghanistan, and pretty soon the whole group is clapping.
  I think that commercial really did encapsulate how Americans feel 
about our sons and daughters and husbands and wives who serve there. 
This is really deep and touching and it is good for America.
  During Vietnam, there were a lot of disagreements. The gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and I had enormous disagreements with the 
President about Iraq, and a lot of my constituents, a big majority of 
my constituents had a lot of disagreements. But to a person they felt 
the same way about our GIs coming home; the Marines, soldiers and 
sailors. That commercial showed people wanting to applaud them as they 
came home.
  That is the spirit of America, yet this administration draws a budget 
that reduces the protection that these folks ought to have after coming 
home from the front line. That is just totally out of touch.
  The veterans are a very uncomplain-
ing group. I find veterans to be the least demanding group, perhaps, of 
any people I work with. It is just not in touch with the spirit of 
America of wanting to embrace these people.
  It is denigrating their contribution. It is not understanding how 
deep people feel about the sacrifices that these folks have made in 
Iraq and Afghanistan. That is why we will have a very vigorous effort 
to restore this funding.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I would tell my colleague from 
Washington that a gentleman by the name of J.P. Brown, who has a weekly 
radio show where he talks about veterans' issues, had me as a guest on 
that show recently. I talked about what happened to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and what was going on with VA health care 
funding. Mr. Brown has said that he has gotten more calls from 
listeners than he has ever received before.
  I suspect that what we are talking about here tonight will be 
changed, because I do believe the veterans of this country and those 
who care about them are going to speak up and speak out.
  I shared part of a press release from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I 
would like to share a few more comments from that press release. This 
press release from the Veterans of Foreign Wars says, ``This budget 
will cause veterans' health care to be delayed and may result in the 
return of 6month-long waiting periods. That is especially shameful 
during a time of war.''
  Then it continues: ``The VFW national commander is now calling on all 
2.4 million members of the VFW and its auxiliaries, as well as all 
service members and their families, to urge their congressional Members 
to correct the shortfalls in this budget.''
  Then the press release concludes with this statement. ``Without the 
American soldier, there would not have been a United States of America, 
and I shudder to imagine the rest of the world. Our Nation must honor 
its commitment to care for those who are ultimately responsible for 
every liberty we enjoy today.''
  So my sense is that the leadership of the various veterans' 
organizations in this country are going to mobilize their members to 
descend upon this Capitol, at least through e-mails and letters and 
phone calls, faxes, and so on, to demand of their Representatives, our 
colleagues in this Chamber, that this shameful budget, especially the 
parts that deal specifically with veterans' health care, be rejected by 
this Congress, and that we do what we should do, which is to provide 
adequate funding so that those who are in need of health care, those 
who have served the country and are in need of health care, have the 
ability to receive it in a timely manner.
  Mr. INSLEE. If my colleague will yield once again, it seems to me our 
goal ought to be a policy that we can be proud of. This is not a budget 
to be proud of on behalf of our veterans.
  I just want to reiterate, and continuing along the same vein that the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) has, I want to read from what Mr. 
Thomas Cadmus, Director of the American Legion, said in questioning 
this budget. He said, ``Is the goal of these legislative initiatives to 
drive those veterans paying for their health care away from the system 
designed to serve veterans? The President is asking Congress to make 
health care poaching legal in the world's largest health care delivery 
system.''

                              {time}  2245

  Health care poaching, instead of assisting the veterans, is not a 
budget America can be proud of. That is why we are going to continue 
this effort, and we hope others will join us to make sure that the 
sacrifices of our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are honored 
with a budget that America can be proud of and can stand up and defend. 
This President's budget falls way short and it must be changed.

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