I am incredibly disappointed by the Republican Senator who blocked this bipartisan bill over supposed fiscal concerns. bit.ly/2UAYQfI
The U.S. Government wrote this check to the Blue Water Navy veterans 40 years ago when we exposed these service members to Agent Orange. It’s far past time for us to pay up and live up to the trust that these men and women put in their government.
All too often politicians will say that veterans deserve everything we can give them and more; that we owe veterans a debt we can never repay. Well, today we saw politicians fail to live up to those promises and renege on paying that debt.
I have been working on this bill since it was first introduced several Congresses ago. We have come a long way and are almost at the finish line.
But it’s disheartening to see a bill that passed unanimously by the House blocked by a handful of Senators over supposed fiscal concerns when those same Senators voted to add trillions of dollars to the deficit last year to score a political win on the back of American taxpayers.
It is especially troubling to see this bill blocked when there is so much work left to do on toxic exposures as a whole, to include those exposed to burn pits and radiologically exposed veterans.
Many of the Senators who spoke tonight in favor of the bill said that the only thing standing in the way of Blue Water Navy veterans receiving the benefits they earned was the U.S. Senate. They are right.
