mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman from wisconsin for yielding me this time and for his leadership on behalf of our nation 's veterans , leadership which has sorely been lacking in this house . 
this administration and this congress has insulted our veterans community repeatedly in the last few months , insults which i hope we will remedy with today 's motion . 
the head of the office of management and budget actually had the nerve to testify before the committee on the budget that over the last 3 years the veterans administration had received $ .5 billion more than it actually needed , more than it actually needed , when we have waiting lists which the gentleman outlined , when we have nursing and medical vacancies , when we have maintenance backlogs , when we have people waiting a year for an appointment for a dentist , and months and months for surgeries that are needed . 
omb told the veterans that we have more than what was needed ! 
then the secretary of our veterans administration testified before committees of this congress that we got it wrong because we had a bad mathematical model . 
we had a mathematical model that did not take into account the fact that there was a war going on and thousands of troops were coming back with significant injuries and with post-traumatic stress disorder . 
we did not know a war was going on , so we underfunded the va . 
that is an insult to our nation 's veterans , that we did not know a war was going on , and we did not provide the money . 
many are suffering today as a result of that decision . 
and , mr. speaker , when we had a chance to help the veterans before our last recess , the chairman of the committee on veterans ' affairs said , we can only give $ 975 million , that that was the right number , while the senate did $ 1.5 billion , which we are now instructing our house to accept today . 
we could have had this money flowing to our veterans ' centers weeks ago . 
this could have been signed by the president several weeks ago , yet in my hometown of san diego , we have 1 , 000 people on a waiting list just to have their first appointment . 
we have maintenance backlogs and nursing shortages , and we can not get them the money because we did not have the right numbers , said the veterans chairman . 
well , we had the right number all along , my colleagues . 
the independent budget , a professional document prepared by our veterans ' service organizations , had the numbers exactly right . 
the mathematical model could have been tested against this , and we could have had the proper support for our nation 's veterans . 
so everybody who talked about our nation 's veterans when we had memorial day , when we had our july 4th celebrations , and we will hear it on november 11th as we have heard today , that we all support our veterans . 
well , let us show it by the proper votes ! 
the democrats in this congress have tried at every level , on the committee on the budget , on the committee on appropriations , in the senate , in the house , and we tried on the floor of this house to give the independent budget numbers the force of law , but we were voted down on pure party-line votes . 
so i hear that everybody supports our veterans , but when the votes come , the majority party is not supporting our nation 's veterans . 
let us pass this instruction motion . 
let us honor our veterans and give the veterans the support they need , especially when they come home from war . 
