Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Florida for yielding time.

Here we go again. Another year, another Military Construction- Veterans Affairs appropriations bill full of partisan riders.

When someone takes the oath and joins the military, they are making a selfless commitment to protect our country. As Members of Congress, we must be ready to pay for all costs of war and to help every veteran, regardless of their gender, faith, race, or sexual orientation.

That is why I am disturbed that my Republican colleagues have included many of the same partisan riders in this year's bill that were in this bill last year. These radical riders aim to restrict access to abortion and attack LGBTQ+ rights, attacks that are occurring during Pride Month no less.

There is, once again, an amendment to this bill that will make it easier for the most vulnerable veterans to access guns and more difficult for VA to help them. The inclusion of this rider spreads the lie that if a veteran seeks mental health care at the VA, then their guns will be taken away. This could not be further from the truth. VA will not take your guns if you come to VA for mental health care.

We want to encourage veterans to get the mental health care they have earned and often very much need. This fear-mongering of VA overreach could lead to more veterans not seeking lifesaving assistance. Veterans have a higher rate of suicide than the general population, and they are more likely to use a gun. Knowing this, how could we, in good conscience, vote for this bill with the risks it poses to our veterans?

There is another harmful amendment that would lead to greater privatization of veterans' healthcare. Specifically, it would require the VA to apply new access standards for non-VA care. As written, this amendment would cost VA billions of dollars per year to implement and result in tens of thousands of veterans being sent to private providers for lower quality, higher cost care than they would otherwise receive at VA. This is a significant policy change that has not been considered by the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Republicans are attaching it to this appropriations bill because they know it would never pass as a standalone bill. The appropriations process should not be used to legislate such a sweeping change. This is deeply concerning to me and should give every Member voting in this Chamber great pause.

Poison pill riders have turned what should be a nonpartisan issue of helping our veterans into a political game. Stop the political games, and let's get serious about helping every veteran. Until then, I cannot support this bill in good faith.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' and opposing this legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source