Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:42 pm
Image Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi piled on after veteran groups slammed retiring Republican Senator Tom Coburn for blocking a bill to reduce the epidemic of veteran suicides, which tragically takes the lives of 22 military veterans every day.
Calling their deaths a tragedy, Pelosi blasted the Republican, “History will not remember kindly the man who spent his final days in the Senate denying our veterans the help they desperately need.”
Pelosi lambasted Coburn for blocking the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, bipartisan legislation introduced by Representative Timothy J. Walz (D-MN), which unanimously passed the House last week, and that takes some doing.
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“Every day, 22 American veterans commit suicide. Their deaths are a daily tragedy – a moral challenge that demands we ensure that we are giving each and every one of our veterans the support and mental health services they deserve,” the Democrat Leader said in a statement. “The Clay Hunt SAV Act, unanimously passed by the House, represents an essential step forward for our veterans struggling with the seen and unseen scars of their time at war.”
“Our veterans have cried out to our nation to act to help them. But this week, Senator Tom Coburn decided that our veterans are not worthy of our help,” Pelosi blasted. And then the blow, “History will not remember kindly the man who spent his final days in the Senate denying our veterans the help they desperately need.”
Nancy Pelosi talked about our responsibility to live up to the sacred promises made to our veterans, “We owe our veterans a sacred promise: that just as the military leaves no soldier behind on the battlefield, we will leave no veteran behind when they come home.
She commended Walz for addressing the epidemic and urged a continued fight, “In the name of the 8,000 veterans who take their lives every year, in the name of the millions of brave men and women who went to war, in the name of basic human decency, we will continue to fight to strengthen mental health services and meet our responsibility to our heroes. We commend Congressman Tim Walz for his unyielding leadership in addressing the epidemic of veteran suicide, and we continue to join in his determination to see his bill promptly passed by the 114th Congress.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CN) said he would reintroduce the bill in the next Senate.
“This is why people hate Washington,” Paul Rieckhoff, CEO and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in response according to the Huffington Post.
Yep. This is one example of the many reasons people get frustrated with Washington.
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