Take Care of America's Veterans Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. I rise in opposition to any effort to cut veterans' benefits.

Let's be clear. This bill raises the cost of the VA Home Loan Program during a housing crisis, and this program and this bill cuts VA benefits for current veterans who don't have them and for troops downrange right now for two of the most common conditions they may experience: sleep apnea and tinnitus.

This bill sells off more VA and veterans' care to the private sector. It continues the privatization push of the Trump administration and so many congressional Republicans. I am not going to take a lecture on fiscal responsibility or accept this argument from the Republicans and the Trump administration that you have to fund veterans' programs by cutting care or benefits for other veterans.

The same people who have funded an Iran war at the tune of billions and billions of dollars, the same people who added nearly $5 trillion to the debt through their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which, by the way, has a new name now, I guess. We have lost track of that. That new bill, by the way, would also add $19 trillion over 30 years.

Mr. Speaker, there is no problem on the Republican side with adding to the debt when it comes time to give tax breaks and tax giveaways to the ultrarich and to corporations, but when it comes time to care of veterans, now they are counting pennies.

Let's be crystal clear about what this bill does. It says to troops downrange right now who are in harm's way that they have to have worse benefits than veterans have today to pay for benefits and care that other veterans have earned.

That is ridiculous. It is why groups like the VFW, the IAVA, and others oppose this bill. It is why I think Democrats and Republicans should oppose this bill on the floor today.

For this reason and many others, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House Rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an amendment to this bill.

The amendment would change the offsets used in the bill. Instead of reducing the VA home loan benefit and cutting disability benefits for sleep apnea and tinnitus, it takes unobligated, appropriated but not committed, funding given to the DOD in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and uses it as a pay-for.
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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit.

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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Mr. DELUZIO. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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