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Rep. Roy explains how the PACT Act harms both veterans and America’s future

July 13, 2022

WASHINGTON - Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) spoke on the House floor against H.R. 3967, which will recklessly puts billions of spending on autopilot while worsening VA backlogs for veterans.

A transcript of the speech is below and the speech clip is available here:

“Obviously, this is an important issue and it's critical, and I have many friends here, particularly veterans, who support the measure. And I understand why. Every single one of us wants to make sure that we take care of this issue and frankly, it's been way too long in getting to it and I agree with that completely.”

“But unfortunately, I cannot support it. Because the bill spends about $285 billion that we don't have. We have to address the issue in this body of spending money we don't have. And the Chairman said that ‘well, why don't you raise it on other issues?’ I raised it on every single issue. I raised it on a $2 million bill about 30 minutes ago on the floor. At some point we have to pay for the stuff that we're spending or the very things that these veterans sacrifice for will be made completely and utterly worthless.”

“We are destroying the Republic that these men and women sacrifice for, and we are destroying it in this chamber by our incompetence, and by our irresponsible refusal to actually manage the affairs of this Republic appropriately, putting this bill on autopilot to the tune of $680 billion of mandatory spending, with 280 million unpaid for, which we could pay for right now with existing COVID funds. We could pay for it right now with the elimination of the SALT deduction. We can pay for right now with any number of spending cuts and/or tax increases, if we wanted to have that debate on the floor of the House, but we're not doing that.”

“And we do a disservice to the veterans who are sick, because of the burn pit. We do a disservice to the veterans who lay their lives on the line and die for this country. We do a disservice to the military, that we say that we support, when we are not spending money that we actually have, as opposed to printing money and borrowing money. And putting it on autopilot when 60% of our spending every year is already on autopilot? When we're 30 and a half trillion dollars in debt? And then to have, instead of the established scientific framework, we put 20 conditions in without scientific evidence, which will cause a backlog, which the VA even acknowledges would cause a backlog.”

“These are real concerns that we ought to address, but fundamentally, you have to pay for that which we are spending. We're undermining the sacrifice of the very veterans that we say that we are helping with this measure, by not doing it fiscally responsible.”

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