Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2004

DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004-CONTINUED

Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague from New York and all of those who have worked so hard. I plead to my colleagues, the CARES Commission had a good idea. Let's study and see how we can make health services better for veterans. But looking at what they recommended in New York State, something went amuck; to close the Canandaigua Hospital makes no sense whatsoever. It is desperately needed by so many veterans. It is a fountain point of the community, and it does special work in mental health and psychological services that no hospital within miles and miles and miles around, tens of miles, hundreds of miles around, can do.

All we are asking is a chance. Let the CARES Commission go back to the drawing board and figure out what they did wrong. Let them look at what they have done wrong in New York in terms particularly of Canandaigua but also of Montrose and the Manhattan VA hospital where anyone who looks at it up close sort of scratches their head in wonderment and says: How did they come up with these recommendations? This is a bipartisan bill. It does not stop any kind of restructuring except for the fact that it says: Go back and look at other factors they seem to have missed.

It is desperately needed in many parts of the country. The veterans groups of America are totally for this amendment.

This Chamber and the other just voted for $87 billion for Iraq. Whatever one's opinion of that was, how can we at the same time turn our backs on so many of those veterans who fought in other wars? I know the intentions of the commission may have been good, but the effect, at least in our State, is to do just that. It is to turn its back on tens of thousands of veterans who served their country, many of whom were wounded in the course of battle.

This is a pro-veteran amendment, supported by veterans throughout the country. I urge my colleagues to support it.

I thank my colleague from New York for the great job she has done. We have worked as a team to try to prevent this from happening. This amendment gives us a good opportunity to go back and reargue. We hope our colleagues will support it.