Nomination of Carolyn Hessler-Radelet to be Director of the Peace Corps
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I too want to join my colleague from Virginia in adding accolades to our Senators from Vermont and Arizona in putting together this proposal. I would like to make a few points here. First, the veterans should come first. These are people whom we sent overseas to risk their lives for us. When they come back injured, nothing should stand in the way of us giving them the best medical care possible.
Senators McCain and Sanders, of different political philosophies--if they each had to write their own bill would write different bills--came together, not for their ideology's sake, not for political advantage, but for the good of these veterans. That is the highest duty we have here.
The second point I would make is this: In a body that has been wracked by partisanship, I was hoping and praying that that partisanship would not stand in the way of us helping our veterans. Because of this good work of Vermont and Arizona's Senators, that has happened. That has happened. We are not home yet. We hope no one will be so selfish that they feel their own amendment or amendments have to be voted on if they are extraneous, because that could blow up the deal. We all know how fragile, even for our veterans, bipartisan agreements are in this body. This is a higher calling.
I talked at length over the last several days with Senator Sanders. I know how heartfelt this is for him. As he said: If he wrote his own bill, he would have done a lot more. But each of us writing a bill and giving a speech about it is not going to help a single veteran. The way this body works is, we have to come together. There is no one on the other side of the aisle, perhaps no one in this Chamber, who better respects what veterans have gone through than Senator McCain after what he went through himself as a prisoner of war. He was just the right person for the chairman of our Veterans Committee, Bernie Sanders, to reach out to. Because they both cared so much about veterans, they came together. It is now up to the rest of us, the other 98, to do the same, to come together, to pass this bill quickly. This does not mean this will be the last thing we will do for veterans. This is an issue we are going to have to revisit, given the sickness we have in parts of the Veterans Administration, given the long waiting lists, given the fact that while most veterans get very good care in our VA, not every veteran does. Our goal is to have every veteran get good care in our VA.
Hopefully this bill will pass. Hopefully maybe this will set a precedent that we can work together on important issues; we can each submerge some of our heartfelt feelings that it has to be our way and reach compromise with the other side. That is
what Senator Sanders has done. That is what Senator McCain has done. I salute them for their patriotism, their good sense, and, frankly, their courage.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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