Protecting Our Veterans
Floor Speech
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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, for bringing up the subject and offering me the opportunity to stand in support of his legislation, the RECORDS Act, to let you know, what you have probably heard, that literally hundreds of thousands--500,000 to 600,000 veterans are awaiting their care based on the inability of the VA to get to their records.
They can't prove that they are due the care, that they have earned the care, without the records. The VA has this backlog, which takes them a year, maybe two, where they can't access their records to get the care that they have earned. So I commend the gentleman for his efforts with the RECORDS Act.
I have a similar bill, the WINGMAN Act, which allows congressional staffers, given the appropriate approvals, to go in and help the veteran do the same thing, get through the backlog.
Mr. Keller has a response. He has a solution. I am working on a solution. Who is not working on a solution? The VA. It is not the people down in the trenches, down doing the hard work. As usual, it is the administration, the upper staff, that has failed in this endeavor.
If we can do anything in the United States of America--of all the billions we spend, here and across the globe, anywhere, and all the different programs that we have--the least we can do is take care of those who have safeguarded our freedoms and have earned the care that they deserve to get. The only thing that stands between them and that care is accessing their records. They cannot right now because of this backlog.
The good gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller) has legislation that will fix that, and I urge my colleagues to support it. I urge everybody that is a veteran or a family member supportive of a veteran to write, to contact their Congressman, their Member of Congress, and urge them to support this legislation.
Let's see if we can fix the circumstances at the VA for these veterans.
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