Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz Statement at the Subcommittee Markup of the 2024 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill
Congreswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-23), Ranking Member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's markup of the 2024 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill:
While I have appreciated the work we’ve done together over the past few years, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that I cannot support this bill for a variety of reasons.
As part of the Republican’s Default on America bill they just passed, they included no protections for veterans funding, despite making promises their proposed cuts would not impact veterans. Verbal promises clearly mean nothing when they could have included these protections in law – ensuring veterans funding would not be subject to political funding battles – and they made the conscious choice not to do so.
On top of that, Republicans voted to immediately rescind $2 billion for veterans for claims processing and appeals, healthcare both within and outside of VA, research, and education and training for veterans. The bill before us today continues the Republican’s disturbing trend that does not protect veterans.
My friend, Chairman Carter was quoted this week saying this FY24 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill is written to an imaginary topline – so clearly, the bill before us is nothing more than a messaging bill. And the message Republicans are sending to the American people is they are not interested in protecting veterans.
In spite of the imaginary top line of this bill, it still underfunds our commitment to our veterans. Just last summer, we passed historic, monumental legislation on a bipartisan basis – the PACT Act – to better serve and better take care of our veterans of all wars who have been exposed to harmful chemicals like Agent Orange, burn pits, and other toxic substances.
As part of that legislation, we established, again, on a bipartisan basis, the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund to ensure the steep cost of healthcare and services related to toxic exposures will always have its own dedicated funding stream. That funding for toxic exposures should not have to compete with other discretionary priorities. That funding for toxic exposures is so important that we provided its own funding sources to ensure that we keep our promise to our veterans to take care of them. This bill does not keep that promise.
The President’s Budget requested $20 billion for the Toxic Exposures Fund and this bill only provides $5.5 billion. Not only does that mean that the Toxic Exposures Fund is underfunded by $14.7 billion, it means that Republicans chose to fill the hole this decision creates with scarce discretionary dollars, denying the guaranteed funding we promised veterans when we passed the PACT Act. Please do not tell me that Republicans are fully funding veteran’s programs. The larger Republican agenda, and this bill is a black and white example of it, that it does nothing to protect veterans from cuts to services.
On the MilCon side of the bill, we don’t have a better story to share here either. This bill actually cuts 1.3 billion dollars compared to the enacted level, compared to current services. That means this bill actually appropriates less funding than we did last year. We have a recruitment and retention problem, and Republicans are cutting funding from military construction. 30% of our military construction budget, 30% of our infrastructure worldwide, are in fair or poor conditions. We have a quality-of-life issue for our service members, and Republicans are cutting funding. Republicans cut dedicated funding for PFAS remediation and cleanup, dedicated funding for military installation climate change and resilience projects, and dedicated funding for the oversight of privatized housing.
Does the mistreatment of our servicemembers in this committee that our committee shines a spotlight on no longer matter to our Republican colleagues? We’ve been working so hard these past few years to hold the privatized housing providers to account, and to work with the Department to provide better resources to families to protect them from poor housing conditions and this bill backtracks on our progress. We are backtracking on our commitment to our service members and their families.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not how disappointing the community funding process has been this year. It’s disappointing that Republicans wouldn’t give us an allocation that would support the seven Democratic projects that were submitted to this subcommittee. This bill is only able to provide $15.3 million for Democratic CPFs, when over $400 million was requested, but it did support $279 million for Republican CPFs. CPFs are capped at 1 percent of the discretionary topline and that topline is at the 2022 spending levels this year. Democrats did not treat Republicans this way when we were in the majority. In fact, we fully funded Republican CPFs that were executable. This is just one more way that Republicans are shortchanging the American people.
I cannot in good conscience support this bill. It saddens me. I have been in this subcommittee since 2014, and I have never felt more sickened and sadder about the product that we are producing today. I’ve never had to make remarks like this, in a subcommittee marking, in the MilCon VA bill, and I hope that we can work together to address these concerns. The subcommittee has a long-standing tradition of bipartisanship, and I hope that we can work together in good faith going forward to take care of our veterans, servicemembers, and their families in the way they deserve, but this bill does not do that. Thank you, and I yield back.