mr. chairman , i move to strike the last word . 
mr. chairman , if the previous speaker is going to describe something i did in committee , i wish he would get his facts straight . 
the fact is , contrary to what the gentleman said , when the majority brought its recommendations to the full committee with respect to the provision in the bill which raised life insurance benefits from $ 250 , 000 to $ 400 , 000 , with respect to that provision , the committee had applied it retroactively only to those persons who died in iraq and afghanistan . 
contrary to what the gentleman said , my amendment did not restrict what the committee was doing , it expanded what the committee was doing . 
we added coverage for what was estimated to be 2 , 400 additional american service people who died but were not in iraq or afghanistan . 
we did that , for instance , on the theory that if you are a member of the reserve , you are called up to go to iraq , but you are killed in a training accident before you can get there , that you are just as dead , your family is just as much in need as would be the case with someone who went to iraq and then died in an accident . 
now , the gentleman is the chairman of the committee on veterans ' affairs . 
i respect his responsibilities . 
i hope he respects ours . 
i would simply say that what the committee has tried to do is to take a vehicle which is going to spend $ 80 billion of the taxpayers ' money , and use that as an opportunity to expand benefits to deserving servicemen and women . 
i make no apology whatsoever for doing that . 
dick bolling , who was my mentor when i came here and chaired the committee on rules , used to talk disdainfully of people who looked at this house through the prism of what he called `` dung hill politics '' ; in other words , focusing on jurisdiction of different committees , forgetting that we have a larger responsibility to the body as a whole and to the country as a whole . 
now , i make no apology for the fact that the committee on appropriations might have stepped on a few toes in expanding benefits for deserving servicemen and women . 
i am glad they did . 
i hope the toes did not hurt too much . 
but the fact is if the gentleman has objections to what the administration has suggested then i would suggest the majority party needs to get its act together rather than risking these expanded benefits by doing what they almost did in the committee on rules today , which is to make these two sections of the bill subject to a point of order which could have lost those benefits for deserving servicemen and women . 
