The hearing will come to order. We are here to discuss the president s fiscal year 2016 budget request for the department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the committee. Understand that your testimony will be a little bit different today than what we are accustomed to with reference to chart to help us better understand what you are seeing in terms of the challenges that lay ahead and i would say that is indeed a welcome change. So too is the open as you have had with me with members of this committee and this congress about your plans to change the culture at the va. As your testimony illustrates you have been extremely active in visiting va facilities. I think its well over 90 at this point, talking with employees veteran groups in your private sector colleagues with one aim in mind, putting everyones focus squarely on the needs of veterans. Thank you for your willingness to take the job of secretary and thank you for putting everything you have into that job. Turning t
Last summer he was called to remove dr. Kent brantly back to the United States for treatment. Dr. Walters said the first thing he did was to google dr. Brantly. Little plug for google there. I know we got some [ laughter ] and the first pickture he saw was of kent and his family. Now remember, the decision to move kent back to the United States was controversial. Some worried about bringing the disease to our shores. But what folks like william knew was that we had to make the decisions based not on fear, but on science, and he knew that we needed to take care of our heroes, who had sacrificed so much to save the lives of others in order for us to continue to get people to make that kind of commitment. They had to know we had their backs in order for us to effectively respond, and so as williams said, we do the work we do to impact something bigger than ourselves. We do the work we do to impact something bigger than ourselves. Thats the test of american leadership. We have this extraor
The clerk the speakers room washington, d. C. , february 11 2015. I hereby appoint the honorable david w. Jolly to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the chair will receive a message. The messenger mr. Speaker a message from the president of the United States. The secretary mr. Speaker, im directed by the president of the United States to deliver to the house a message in writer. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2015, the chair will now recognize members fromis smiedy the mority a mority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the jotyndinit leaders d the noty whip limited to five minutes, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11 50 a. M. The chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. Dold, for five minutes. Mr. Dold thank you,
I met a veteran who has been out two years and 10 disability but the point is he cant get his paperwork from dod. What are we doing . We have asked this question for years. Its a great question. I have to say secretary hagel and i are totally aligned that we want to have a seamless handoff from the department of defense to the va. Thats why we have instituted programs like cap while the person is on active duty and allison can talk about that. Congressman brown some good news to report on this front though it didnt obviously help that particular veteran two years ago we are engaged now in the mandatory program for all of our servicemembers including National Guard and reserve for which there are now nearly a million who qualify for benefits that did not previously. Another thing that is starting literally right now is the mandatory separation health assessment. The choice to the veteran told a session is if you are going to make a claim to be a for anything that va will do a complete s
After the mehta that sis, not going at the root cause. I would like to hear a definition of defeat, definitive one, and then i would like to hear what your root cause is of why there is an isis, why there was an al qaeda, and ive got one other question after that, ambassador, if you would go first. It is a good point and it is the major flaw of this draft. The draft doesnt tell you give this back to the president and it doesnt authorize the president to do anything more than using armed forces against isil. It doesnt say defeat, though thats one of the things he says is his goal, working to defeat in the there is no goal. One reason we have all been debating about how long this thing should be or what kind of troops or what enduring means is there is no goal. My goal is to defeat isis, to destroy its hold on terrain in iraq and syria. Thats what should be in this thing. That is a military mission. We can do it if possible with our allies. Potentially we will have to use our own forces.