Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Chair, I rise today to express my strong support for funding veterans' programs. However, I am very concerned that this bill is part of a Republican budget that would shortchange other critical priorities--like education, nutrition and housing assistance, healthcare and medical research.

I voted in favor of H.R. 2216, the Military Construction--VA Appropriations bill for FY 2014 because I believe it is critical that we keep our promises to our veterans. Today's legislation provides $157.8 billion for veterans' programs and military construction in FY 2014, including the over $73 billion in advance appropriations for veterans' health care approved in last year's appropriations measure. It also contains $55.6 billion in advance FY 2015 funding for VA medical programs.

Among other critical priorities, it provides over $290 million to help the VA eliminate the disability claims backlog by 2015, including funding for the VA's paperless process claims system. It provides $344 million for the Pentagon and the VA to implement a joint integrated electronic health records system. These funds are critical: the VA has nearly 900,100 Pending disability claims and, of those, 72 percent have been pending for over 125 days. That is unacceptable; the backlog is causing serious hardships for veterans and families throughout our country, and it is imperative that we work with the VA to ensure that the backlog is eliminated and all claims are processed in a fair and timely manner.

While I am proud to support critical funding for those who served our nation, I have serious concerns about the implications this bill carries for the rest of the appropriations process. The Republican Budget sets the lowest cap on discretionary spending in a decade. Non-defense discretionary spending would be reduced even below the levels required under the sequester. Because of those limits, the adequate funding of this bill will result in inadequate funding of other spending bills down the line. Those other bills fund national priorities including education, nutrition and housing assistance, and programs to spur job growth. We cannot afford to abandon those important initiatives.

The White House warned, in its veto threat for this legislation, that enacting this bill ``while adhering to the overall spending limits in the House Budget's top line discretionary level for fiscal year (FY) 2014, would hurt our economy and require draconian cuts to middle-class priorities.'' I couldn't agree more. We need to set a realistic spending ceiling so that all of our national priorities receive adequate funding.

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