CONGRESSWOMAN EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON STANDS UP FOR TROOPS AND VETERANS

Washington, DC – (Wednesday, July 28, 2010) Congresswoman Johnson voted today to support our troops and veterans by ensuring critical funding for veterans health services and the construction of key facilities for training and housing our military.  As our troops return home from Iraq, the funding is a 7.4 percent increase over the previous year for veterans’ health care and benefits, including funding more than 4,000 additional permanent claims processors.  The funding also continues this Congress’s first-ever advance appropriations, ensuring timely and reliable funding for veterans’ services.

“This Congress has a proven record of taking care of the needs of our troops and our veterans,” said Congresswoman Johnson. “Today, we built on that record by making sure that funding for veterans health benefits keeps pace with the needs of a nation at war and never gets delayed because of political games.”

With passage of this bill, since January 2007, the  New Direction Congress will have provided a 70 percent increase in funding for veterans’ health care and benefits, over 10,000 new claims processors to reduce VA case backlogs, 3,389 new doctors and 14,316 new nurses, 145 new community-based vet outpatient clinics, and 92 new vet centers.  

This legislation, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, strengthens the VA workforce to tackle claims backlogs and to process new educational benefits provided through the new GI Bill enacted in the last Congress, under Democratic leadership.  And, it allows the VA to process newly eligible claims for disabilities of Vietnam veterans and their survivors due to exposure to Agent Orange.  The legislation also provides new family caregiver benefits for disabled veterans.

“Our veterans have sacrificed and put their lives on the line to keep our nation safe.  When they return home, it is our responsibility to make sure they have the care and support they need.  In the past three years, Congress has really stepped up to fulfill those needs,” said Congresswoman Johnson.

The bill also addresses critical military construction needs to train and house our troops.  It accelerates the Army’s program to modernize troop housing for trainees, addresses unfunded construction requirements of our Guard and Reserve and expedites the environmental cleanup on closed military bases.


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U.S. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson is the highest-ranking Texan on the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure and a senior member of the Science Committee. She represents the 30th Congressional District of Texas, which, includes Downtown Dallas, Fair Park, Oak Lawn, Turtle Creek, Old East Dallas, Pleasant Grove, & South Oak Cliff; all of Balch Springs, DeSoto, Hutchins, Lancaster & Wilmer and parts of Cedar Hill, Duncanville, Ferris, Glenn Heights and Ovilla.