I have served as a key Member of the Veterans Affairs Committee for 15 years, and this year, Congress will increase the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs by the largest amount in its 77 year history, $6.7 billion. Of that, the Democrats have increased veterans health care by $3.6 billion.

In addition, congress has increased military pay by 3.5%, increasing the President’s request by 1%.

We have addressed the crisis of care for those soldiers fighting for our freedom overseas in the Wounded Warrior Assistance act, which helps our veterans get the medical care they need and navigate the military’s health care bureaucracy.

And for the first time in six years, we are conducting real oversight to make sure the VA provides veterans with the benefits they have earned.

The Democrats have also empowered the Inspector General to investigate and perform its oversight activities in the way the office was designed- to help veterans, not the bureaucracy. This was backed up with an appropriation of $76 million to provide oversight and clean up the VA.

There are over 1.7 million veterans in Florida. Many of these veterans served in World War II are aging rapidly. We need to make sure the VA is available to them and all veterans around the country. President Bush has refused to allow hundreds of thousands of veterans around the country because their injuries are not service-connected or they are not poor enough, in some cases earning only $24,000 a year. These Priority 7 and 8 veterans need access to the health care benefits they earned with their service protecting the freedoms this country holds so dear.

I recently had the honor and privilege of visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France. While there, I laid a wreath of flowers in honor of the soldiers that fought and died at Normandy and visited the graves of Floridians who gave their lives fighting the Nazis.

On every day of the year, not just Veterans Day, I encourage all Americans to reach out to veterans and thank them and their families for their outstanding sacrifice to our nation.