The People's Night

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership of the Republican Study Committee. It is one of the great honors that I have in this Congress to serve with him and others to advocate for conservative principles to move our country forward.

With a new Republican administration, many of the innovative ideas coming from this House now have a chance to become law and achieve real results for the American people. The contrast between this administration and the last one is most clear when it comes to prioritizing readiness for our Department of Defense and caring for our veterans.

As those veterans in Congress know firsthand, shortchanging readiness on the front end will have long-term implications in the years that follow.

We have the moral imperative to ensure that our young men and women who go into harm's way are never in a fair fight. We have an obligation to ensure that our forces are the best-trained, best-equipped, and best-led fighting force in the world. This obligation starts with prioritizing a stable and predictable budget and appropriations process.

Our leaders in the Department of Defense must be able to forecast and anticipate training needs, and that means ending the trend of continuing resolutions that offer neither good fiscal discipline nor the ability to plan that our military leaders desperately need.

Consider that two-thirds of our Army are not ready to deploy. Our Navy is smaller than it has been in 99 years, and our Air Force is the smallest ever and losing pilots at an alarming rate. These are not the marks of a ready force, and the work to rebuild must begin right now.

However, it is important to look at prioritizing the needs of our servicemembers holistically. Just as we would not send them into harm's way without the training they need, we have an obligation to care for the injuries they sustained when they return home. Our veterans deserve and have earned the highest quality of care and to have that care delivered in a timely and efficient manner.

Unfortunately, too often the VA does not have the power to remove substandard employees who are failing our veterans. The overwhelming majority of VA employees are hardworking and dedicated to their jobs, and it is simply not fair to these employees that the VA cannot hold substandard employees accountable.

But with a Republican President in the White House, our veterans will finally see real accountability in the VA with passage of the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. With passage of this bill, there will be a new and expedited process to remove employees who are failing to properly serve our veterans, while maintaining the due process rights of VA workers, as well as their right to appeal.

It would also implement stronger protections for whistleblowers, ensuring that no employee is intimidated into silence.

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