Veterans Benefits Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his great service to our country and for his leadership on behalf of our veterans. They are precious to us. They make us the home of the brave and the land of the free. We couldn't be who we are, as a Nation, without the service and sacrifice of our veterans and their families.

Mr. Ranking Member, I thank you for your participation in our meetings that we have on a regular basis with the Veterans Service Organizations, where so many of them come and give us their priorities of how we can help them. Whether it was the veterans' budget, the forward funding, or a long list of concurrent receipts, there are so many issues that we talk about there. And now, of course, the backlog and the rest.

And in those meetings, almost every time we meet, either at the beginning or the end, we always practically in a prayerful way quote what we say about our soldiers. The military says, On the battlefield, we leave no soldier behind. And we say, And when they come home, we leave no veteran behind.

The gentleman has said that we have one purpose here today, and that is to unite and support our veterans.

Do we support our veterans when we leave their families behind?

Our veterans are willing to go to battle to fight for our country, for our values, for our families, for their well-being, for our freedoms. And those people are not just veterans. They're fathers, they're mothers, they're grandparents, they're aunts and uncles. They're members of families. They want the best for their children and their grandchildren.

It may surprise you: sadly, some of them receive food stamps. Some of them receive Meals on Wheels. All of them, again, want a better future for our country.

So we're not uniting to support our veterans when we do what we're doing here today, because they would want us to support what they were fighting to defend, the ability of our country to be great. And that greatness springs from the health and well-being of the American people, in addition to our military might.

That's how we would define our strength; and I think, from listening to them, they would too.

I listened with interest to how people identified with their families. Four of my brothers were in the Army. My uncle died at the Battle of the Bulge, and that has always been part of the great pride of our family, that great war of World War II, that my father's brother was killed there.

So this World War II Memorial means a lot to all of us. Even if we didn't know anyone, even if we didn't have someone in the family, it's really important to us. And so we have to think of the ramifications of our actions.

When we shut down government, we can't say, oh, we're not respecting our veterans because they can't go to the World War II Memorial. That's what shutting down government is, shutting down much of what they fought for, shutting down the tributes that we pay to them.

So let's not leave our veterans behind by leaving their children, their grandchildren, their families and what they need.

Just to go into it, this bill is billions of dollars less than what over 420 Members of this House passed in June.

We're all there for our veterans. There is no question about that, as our distinguished whip, Mr. Hoyer, said. There is no question. Nobody questions the commitment that we all have, the gratitude that we have, the appreciation, the pedestal that we have our veterans on.

But we leave them behind when we leave behind all that they fought for, and we leave them behind when we put a bill on the floor that's billions of dollars less than we all came together to support just a few months ago.

Don't exploit them. Don't use them. We owe them too much.

On the battlefield, we leave no soldier behind; and when they come home, we leave no veteran behind, and all that they know and love.

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