Bob Filner

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown).

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 816, I was away from the Capitol due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 817, I was away from the Capitol due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 801, I was away from the Capitol due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 802, I was away from the Capitol due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. You don't support mandatory goals.

Mr. FILNER. I will not even yield to my good friend. Even if you were my best friend, I wouldn't yield to you. The hypocrisy of saying, we can't tax anything, we can't tax anything but when it comes to veterans who want to buy a home, their fees are going to be increased because of this bill. Now, that ought to be known to the American people that we're going to vote against a 5 percent surcharge on millionaires, but we're going to go after these folks who are trying to buy their first home and have to pay higher fees. This Republican party is going to protect the millionaires but go after the veterans who can't afford a home. That's what this argument is about right now, under the guise of helping our veterans find jobs. Let's show the American people where reality is. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FILNER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FILNER. Tell me what the question is.

Mr. FILNER. I'm not yielding.

Mr. FILNER. No, I don't support it because it has the same funding thing. And I don't support the hypocrisy of the Republican Party, which says it's against a 5 percent surtax on millionaires but will tax veterans who are trying to buy their first home.

Mr. FILNER. I asked you. I didn't yield to him. I yielded to you, Ms. Foxx. Do you know that you're voting on an extension of taxes, in violation of your pledge to Grover Norquist?

Mr. FILNER. I don't yield to the chair. I yielded only to you. For the record, I guess you don't know what you're voting on, or you're voting against what your pledge was.

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, the gentlelady from North Carolina did not answer my question. I guess she either doesn't know what's in the bill, or she's violating her pledge. I'll leave it at that. Once again, we need jobs for veterans in this country. There is no debate about that. And there's no debate that retraining is okay. What we are debating here is whether this is an effective way to use the floor of this House to bring up a bill which will be presented as something that did jobs, and does nothing, and shows the hypocrisy of these pledges that they're voting to extend the increase----

Mr. FILNER. Do you support mandatory?

Mr. FILNER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I think the whole committee, and certainly the chairman and I, agree that putting veterans to work, especially at a time of high unemployment in general, should be one of the chief goals not only of this committee but of the entire Congress and our Nation. And when we may have, for example, double or even triple the already tragic unemployment rate for veterans, it becomes that much more important. Now I've heard descriptions of this bill as comprehensive and as meaningful. And I was looking forward to this VOW bill, the Veterans Opportunity to Work. I was hoping it would be a WOW bill--that is, a wonderful opportunity to work--but it seems it has become, and remains so, the HOW bill--how are we going to put anybody to work with this bill? Let me try to make that clear, Madam Speaker. Throughout the whole committee process that this bill went through, I described it as one that did not create jobs, but actually taxed veterans. Taxed veterans. Remember that, Madam Speaker. You took a pledge not to vote for anything that taxed anybody. This bill does. It actually taxes one group of veterans to help some other group of veterans. And I still feel the same way about the bill as it came through the process. Now I support all programs that will help veterans and improve their lives, and I know this bill is called a jobs bill. But, it is merely a retraining bill. Retraining. Now, we all want retraining, and we all know it's important. But I want to get people a job. I don't just want to retrain them and call this some great bill. My concern is that this bill will not get veterans hired at all. It may retrain them, who knows, but they'll have no place to get a job. And we'll have taxed one set of veterans to pay for their retraining--an increased tax, for all of you who took the pledge not to increase taxes. Now I think we have to support the spirit of the bill of retraining and try to find proper funding in a bipartisan way, and I hope that working with our Senate counterparts we can do that. We need proper funding for all of these programs that are so good. But the gentleman and his party don't want to ask for more money from anybody, even our millionaires. They want to tax one group of veterans who are trying to buy homes, and so they'll train this group of veterans and claim they're creating jobs. Now, that's not what we should be doing here in this Congress. This bill will actually diminish services to our veterans. I know that my counterparts, for example, want the so-called TAP classes, the Transition Assistance Program classes, contracted out. But I don't think the time is right to do that. So how do we pay for this bill for retraining, this VOW bill that should've been a WOW bill but is only a HOW bill? It says to those who want to buy a home through the VA housing program that your fees, which were scheduled to go down, will not now go down. They're going to be kept high. This refusal to extend a tax decrease has always been described by the party over there as a tax increase, so I will keep your language. You are increasing the taxes on one group of veterans who want to buy homes to pay for this retraining bill which may not get anybody a job. Now, I know, Madam Speaker, you're going to tell Grover Norquist what's going on here, get hold of him right away, because this is a violation of the pledge that he is requiring of all of the Republicans: don't raise taxes. And in his definition of raising taxes, it's extending fees that were going to go down that now don't go down. So that's an increase in taxes. So let's remember this when we think about the VOW bill. Let's vow to say we want to put people to work, we don't want to raise taxes. But this bill does neither. It not only doesn't put people to work, it raises taxes. So I cannot support the bill, Madam Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The bill before us, H.R. 1025, as noted sponsored by Congressman Walz of Minnesota, would ensure that deserving men and women of our National Guard and Reserve receive the honor and distinction of being called veterans. It seems a simple thing, and yet it is denied them. Representative Walz introduced this bill in the last Congress. I'm disappointed to say it didn't clear the Senate, and so we'll have to try again. Our Guard and Reserve comprise a large component of those called to serve in our current wars, and these changing dynamics need to be incorporated into our policies. I think this bill strikes the desired balance. I am in full support of the bill. I would now yield such time as he may consume to the author of the bill, Congressman Walz, to explain it in more detail.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, I would urge support of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We know how JPMorgan Chase and other banks overcharged thousands of veterans and then improperly foreclosed on dozens of families, the most notable case being of Captain Jonathon Rowles and his family who testified very movingly before our committee. Now in the news, we have information that some of the biggest banks and mortgage companies have defrauded veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars by charging illegal fees in veterans' home refinancing loans, just, of course, to add to their problems. I think some of those folks who did that did it knowingly, they did it against the law, and they ought to be in jail today. But when a servicemember separates from the armed services, they need sufficient time to establish good economic footing to be successful. We know that at times, military families have had a difficult time making a transition from the military to the civilian world; therefore, we ought to provide enough time for them to work with their lender, get a new loan, if necessary, or, in a worst-case scenario, sell their home. A home is often a veteran's largest financial asset, and they should have an opportunity to capitalize on their equity and avoid a negative mark on their credit history when they have the means to do so with their own home. Mr. Speaker, this is why my bill here will extend mortgage foreclosure protection to 1 year for those who are separating from service, and it extends those protections to our servicemembers' widows. The bill also includes a requirement for lending institutions with over $10 billion in assets to have a compliance officer and a toll-free number for veterans to call. We should require lending institutions to be informed about the protections for our military and to have a number that they can call for information and help with their loan. I would now like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Braley).

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, again, there are some good provisions of this bill. The Hastings provision is especially appropriate. But we owe the American people better than just ideological legislating because I made this promise and this is a constitutional right. I believe in the Second Amendment. But we can regulate the conditions of that amendment, and this is an especially egregious case which needs regulation. The VA has said that someone cannot manage their own affairs, and yet we write in the provision that says, okay, go buy a gun anyway until some judge says you're mentally incompetent. Let's have the judge's decision first. Then if they are judged to be mentally sound, they can buy a gun. That's their constitutional right. They don't have a constitutional right to be mentally imbalanced and buy a gun that kills dozens or even hundreds of people. That's what we've seen in this country for decades. Let's do a better job. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking member of our Health Subcommittee, someone who has served for 4 years as the chair and who has done so much good for our veterans throughout the Nation, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Obviously, nothing is more important than the safety of our veterans; and this bill, H.R. 2074, contains many provisions to help improve the safety and health care of our veterans. Because of a report I requested as chair, the GAO presenter ``VA Health Care: Actions Needed to Prevent Sexual Assaults and Other Safety Incidents.'' That report found that veterans and employees were exposed to personal dangers, including sexual assaults, in the very facilities that should be protecting them. And, Madam Speaker, I think we ought to be more outraged given the findings of that report. That report found that there were not just dozens of alleged sexual assaults that went unreported, not even scores of such assaults, but hundreds of them--hundreds of sexual assaults alleged but not reported by those who had the obligation and responsibility to report them. How are our veterans protected when they can't even have a report of an alleged assault? What message does that give to people that the military & the VA care about what's going on here and what's going on with their safety? That's who we should be going after here, by the way. It's very clear who has the responsibility about reporting such assaults, and yet they were not reported in the hundreds of cases, and that was only, by the way, at some selected study places. Who knows what we would have found in the whole institution? I don't know that the VA has ever reprimanded any of those people. I don't know that the VA has ever said to the Veterans Administration that this will not be tolerated, that not only are we going to report on them, but investigate them and bring people to justice. I don't know that any of that has happened. That's what this bill should be trying to focus on. What happens to those people who don't report them? What happens to the cover-ups? What happens to those who protect each other as people are assaulted? I'm not sure that we have come to grips with this issue. This report was outrageous. This report was incredibly, incredibly tragic. And all I find is we are going to do some process changes in here--and I support those, and we'll vote for the bill. But we're sending a message here to the entire 250,000 working people of this VA that we're not really concerned about them, we're not reporting them, we're not getting to those people covering up, we're not getting at those people who protect each other, we're not getting at those who have violated the law by not reporting such incidents. Let's go after them. Let's give our veterans some comfort that their safety is protected. I reserve the balance of my time.