Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026

Floor Speech

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Ms. ESCOBAR. Mr. Chairman, I would like to first express my gratitude. I am excited to be on the Appropriations Committee and to serve with wonderful colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Chairman, I have been so alarmed by the attacks on hardworking Americans by the Trump administration. We are seeing, through the Republican reconciliation bill, a historic transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the haves.

It has been equally alarming to see that our veterans have not been exempt from what we are all concerned about. In fact, if we look at the mass firings that occurred, as directed by Elon Musk and his DOGE effort, one-third of our Federal workforce is made up of veterans. They have been at risk with those firings.

We know also that there are additional firings that are coming. There are 80,000 VA employees slated to be fired. The cuts to healthcare in the reconciliation bill will impact veterans' families, which is why I was hoping we could mitigate much of that through this bill. Unfortunately, we have not, which is why I cannot support the bill.

In fact, Project 2025, which we discussed at length last year, one of the tenets of it calls for privatizing the VA. This bill lays the foundation for that. We know that our veterans demand, expect, and deserve the best, highest quality healthcare, and that is why we must do more through this bill and not privatize.

There are other components of the bill that are equally alarming. I hope we can continue to work better on both sides of the aisle to improve care for our veterans. This bill doesn't get us there.

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