OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

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Floor Speech

Date: June 17, 2026
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. TILLIS. But just by way of offsets, I know that my friend from Connecticut said he is offended by requiring an offset.

I think the Presiding Officer and I might be like-minded on this. The Presiding Officer and I both have the distinction of voting against the PACT Act in 2022. I voted against the PACT Act--only nine Members of the U.S. Senate did; the majority of my conference voted with it-- because it was unfunded. It was a trillion-dollar promise being made to veterans. I knew absolutely well that if we didn't do the work to figure out how to pay for it, we weren't going to fulfill that promise.

As I told everyone back then, I am from a veterans State. We have 1 million veterans in our State. One in 10 people in North Carolina is a veteran. I talk to them every single day. When they asked me why I voted against it, I said: When I make a promise, I want to fulfill it.

When you vote on something here and you don't put a pay-for in it, you are just making a promise. You haven't created the mechanics and you haven't really made a promise you can fulfill because you haven't said how the money is going to come.

I have seen endless hearings since the PACT Act was passed about all the problems with implementing the PACT Act. I have seen other hearings about how other promises have been broken so that we can start fulfilling the promises of the PACT Act. That is what happens when you don't think through the process, and I think that is what we have here.

We have nearly five dozen bipartisan, bicameral priorities at risk in the Take Care of America's Veterans Act. Rather than come down here and produce the same result--and I should add that my colleague from Connecticut was not able to pass this through unanimous consent when Democrats were in the majority. If we want to solve this problem, if we want to solve this specific problem, which I want to solve, we do the work in the committee to put the policy down and to fund it.

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Mr. TILLIS.

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