Veterans Benefits Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This, I believe, is really a fraud. This is just a part of the simple game that has been played to justify keeping this government shut. The proposed rate of $2.5 billion is the same amount provided in the House-passed MilCon-VA bill earlier this summer, which passed 421-4. It is the same funding request level by the administration.

This CR does not touch or do anything for the remaining VA discretionary accounts. In fact, the CR fails to include $155 million for the Veterans Benefits Management System. It fails to include $136 million for the Veterans Claims Intake Program. These two programs are vital to speeding up the claims process; yet they are not included.

The medical research account, not included; construction, major and minor, not included; Office of the Secretary, including the Board of Veterans Appeals, $438 million, not included; the VA Office of Inspector General, $116 million, not included; the VA IT, $13.68 billion, not included; grants to State veterans homes, to State cemeteries, the National Cemetery Administration, not included.

On June 4, we passed a full bill, a complete bill, a bipartisan bill 421-4. Mr. Speaker, if this measure goes on to become law, which I doubt that it will, a majority of the Federal Government will still be shut down.

For example, the Department of Defense will not have the materiel support needed to conduct training to ensure their readiness for the forces at home. Regular training exercises, including large-scale training rotations, depend on equipment that is in proper working order, facilities that have been properly maintained, and supplies needed to support the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen in their training efforts.

Under this bill, pay would still be denied to more than 42,500 fellow law enforcement agencies and correctional workers at the Department of Justice, 4,000 weather forecasters and other National Weather Service employees. On extreme weather events, we won't have employees to protect us.

Mr. Speaker, as Members of Congress, we don't have the luxury to pick and choose which parts of the Federal Government we want to fund. It is our responsibility under the Constitution to fund the entire Federal Government. Let me repeat: the entire Federal Government. So, instead of playing games, let the House of Representatives vote on a clean Senate CR and end this shutdown very quickly.

I am disappointed. I am downright disgusted. I truly resent the way that those on the other side of the aisle are trying to use veterans as pawns in this cynical game of government shutdown. All we have to do is pass a clean CR. This CR--this budget--should not be a Democrat CR, and it should not be a Republican CR. It should be an American CR for all of us. I urge that we defeat this cynical effort and that we adopt a full, clean CR.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we live in the greatest country on the face of the Earth. We enjoy freedoms that they enjoy no place else like in America, but freedom is not free. The freedoms we enjoy were bought with a price, and that was the price of the men and women who sacrificed.

I am very, very saddened tonight that our colleagues would use and would hide behind the garment of sacrifice of those veterans and put forth a CR that does not fund, as the Senate CR does, the discretionary budget fully, the mandatory budget fully. But theirs, this CR, will not.

I urge the defeat of it, and let's not allow them to hide behind the sacrifice of our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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