RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Rep. Ruiz: hello, everybody. I‘m Congress Manuel ruiz, and like dr. Dexter said, I was a surgery intern in the Boston v.a., providing care to our heroes. And we are here to stop the illegal funding freeze which will then become the funding cut that President Trump and Elon Musk are doing to the v.a.. I want to also thank everybody who‘s here and all the veterans and all the workers who provide care, who provided counseling, the benefits, and all the services and the programs that our veterans rely on. And why is it illegal? It is illegal because Congress, under the Constitution, wrote into law what programs need to be funded. They authorize it, and then they find it to a certain amount, and it is up to the president to administer what Congress allocated to those programs. Single-handedly deciding which programs to cut or which funding to cut is illegal under our constitution, and you bet that there will be the judicial Branch who will come in and put a hold on that. The other problem is the programs that are under attack, and you are going to hear the dog whistle that Trump and Musk like to say. “we are weeding out fraud, waste, and abuse,” “we are looking at efficiencies.”
That is a dog whistle! What they are really doing in this severe hiring freeze and the staff cuts is they are dismantling the processes in which veterans can benefit from the health care or the benefits that they need and that they deserve and that they have earned. You are going to hear that, oh, we are not cutting benefits. What they are cutting are the people that process the benefits. You are going to hear, “but we are not cutting health care,” but what they are doing is they are firing the nurses and the staff that take care of you in the hospitals. Now, I have been in this fight for 13 years, and representative takano knows I‘ve been in the fight to pass the tax act and make sure that veterans who work on dust unjustly exposed to – you the dignity and care and benefits that they need and that they deserve.
What I hear is that the v.a. Employs a delay until dead strategy. Delay the benefits, delay the care, they wait and wait and wait until finally it is too late or they are gone. And this is another delay until dead strategy, because who do you think is processing your benefits? Who do you think is going to take care of you on the intake, if you are health care services? Who do you think will take care of you when you are in a coma or when you have pneumonia or you have difficulty to breathe because of your exposure to burn pits? And if these men and women who have devoted their lives to take care of you, so don‘t believe the dog whistle.
Don‘t believe the fraud, waste, abuse, and efficiency. They are dismantling the system to delay until dead. Thank you.
