[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 29778-29779]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   DEMOCRATS HAVE PRIORITIZED THE NEEDS OF OUR VETERANS SINCE DAY ONE

  (Mr. LYNCH asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. LYNCH. Madam Speaker, I do want to encourage my colleagues across 
the aisle to remember the history here.
  It was not long ago that the previous VA Secretary, Mr. Nicholson, 
came before this House and complained that the VA was $1.1 billion in 
the red. That was under a House Leadership that was Republican, and 
that left short many of the needs of our veterans.

[[Page 29779]]

  It was when the Democrats in January took over that we pushed this 
largest single appropriations bill in the history of the VA to address 
all of those unmet needs, and I just asked my colleagues across the 
aisle to work with us. No one is complaining here today about the 
content of that bill or the process that brought it to this floor.
  Many of the ideas in that bill are part and parcel of what my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle would hope for. We just need 
to work together today to get this bill to the floor, get it done, and 
get it to the President for his signature.

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