Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (114th Congress)

Thank you, Chairman Dent, Ranking Member Bishop, and Chairman Rogers for your work on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, before I turn to the Military Construction-VA bill, I must note that for months, we have heard commitments from Republican leadership that the budget and appropriations process will return to regular order and adhere to the bipartisan agreement enacted in late 2015. Yet at our first markup, the House still has not passed a budget, the smart money says we never will, and the Speaker is threatening to keep appropriations bills off the floor unless a budget is passed.

The most extreme voices in the Republican conference – who would renege on last year’s bipartisan budget agreement – continue to reject as insufficiently radical, the Republican budget resolution that would devastate good-paying jobs, end the Medicare guarantee, and increase poverty in our communities.

Thank you for yielding Mr. Chairman.

From your first day as Chairman, you have set a cooperative tone and I want to thank you for continuing to be inclusive as we work through this process. I believe the Chairman has worked very hard with very limited time to get to this point. I am pleased with several aspects of the bill.

First, the bill provides robust funding for military construction and provides adequate funding for both the Active and Reserve Components. I was pleased to see that for the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) account, the bill provides $25 million above the FY 2017 budget request to help speed up the clean-up of former Defense Department sites.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and welcome Mr. Secretary.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to say that President Obama or this Congress, whether under Democratic control or Republican control, has not provided the proper resources of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Like in previous budget proposals, the VA’s budget continues to grow. In fact, since 2009 total VA funding has grown by 86%. Let me say that again, VA funding since 2009 has grown 86%. How many other agencies can say that?

Mr. Chairman, FY 2017 is no different. The VA sees a healthy increase of five percent over the FY 2016 enacted level. And when you include mandatory funding, the president’s FY 2017 VA budget proposal provides $182 billion, a 9% increase over the VA’s FY 2016 funding, which is almost double VA’s 2009 budget.