Roby: Obama should be ashamed for threatening to veto VA funding

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April 29, 2015

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Congresswoman Martha Roby joined Yellowhammer Radio Wednesday, and saying she was fired up is a little bit of an understatement.

“I’m getting ready to not be nice up here [in Washington] today,” Rep. Roby told host Cliff Sims before launching into the problem she has with the way the Veterans Affairs administration has handled the multitude of scandals that have been uncovered over the last year.

“All of this behavior is outrageous, and our veterans have suffered at the hands of those that are supposed to be offering them the best medical care that we can give them,” Rep. Roby said. “I’m done asking nicely, and it’s time for action.”

Rep. Roby has taken the lead in the fight to hold the VA accountable since it was discovered in 2014 that the agency’s treatment centers were keeping fake wait times lists, among a litany of other egregious scandals. One employee at a VA hospital in Alabama was even found to have taken a veteran recovering from substance abuse to a crack house to buy drugs and solicit a prostitute.

Though Rep. Roby was clearly ginned up ahead of a speech on the floor of the U.S. House, she reserved some of her strongest words for President Obama.

“Once again, President Obama has issued a veto threat to a piece of legislation that we’ve put forward, except this time it’s personal. This time he’s messing with our military families and our veterans. This bill, contrary to what the White House is putting out, is an increase of 6 percent in VA funding. This is the most money that the VA has ever gotten when it comes to Congress appropriating these dollars, and yet the President is out there stating that we have cut VA spending. Let me tell you why, because the President and this administration has failed our veterans. They’re the ones that made the promise to make the VA better, and the VA is not better, it’s worse. Our veterans are hurting and this President has nothing else to do but say ‘look at those crazy Republicans. There they go again cutting funding.’ No, a 6 percent increase in funding.

“This President is again being dishonest with the American people. We have done our job, and he is playing politics with our military families and our men and women that put their lives on the line for our freedom and liberty, and quite frankly I’m a little bit disgusted.”

“This is not a partisan issue,” Roby declared. “Quite frankly some of my Democratic colleagues ought to be shaming the President on this as well, because this is unbelievable.”

Just after Roby’s interview with Yellowhammer Radio she went to the U.S. House floor to lambast Democrats and the President for his veto threat where she said the President’s tactics are “shameful.”