Military News |
July 25, 2017

Today, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson (NC-08), the representative of Fort Bragg and the voice for North Carolina’s veterans, released the following statement after the House passed several measures to support and improve care for veterans, including H.R. 3218 to make several significant improvements to the GI Bill:

 
“As I’ve said before, North Carolina’s veterans can count on me to be their voice. And my support of these measures speaks loud and clear: I will always fight for the care, service, and respect they deserve,” said Rep. Hudson.
 
“As a new generation of veterans returns home from war, it is my priority to ensure they get the care promised to them for their physical and psychological wounds. Just as important, I’m working to improve educational support and resources so they can get the skills needed to transition to civilian life and find good-paying jobs. These bills help meet those goals and I’m proud to support them.”
 
Congress has been hard at work to clean up the bureaucracy at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and ensure veterans get the care and support they were promised. Last month, the president signed landmark bipartisan VA reform to make it easier to fire VA employees for poor performance or misconduct and to establish whistleblower protections. And in April, the president signed the legislation into law to improve the VA Choice Program and extend access to timely, quality health care for veterans. Yesterday, the House continued that important work by passing several measures, including:

H.R. 3218, Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017 – this bill greatly expands and improves the education benefits within the GI Bill. For a backgrounder on the bill, click here.

H.R. 2749, Protecting Business Opportunities for Veterans Act of 2017 – this bill strengthens enforcement over veteran owned small businesses that improperly pass through contracts.

H.R. 282, Military Residency Choice Act – this bill amends the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to permit the spouse of a service member to elect to use the same residence as the service member for purposes of taxation and voting, regardless of the date on which the marriage of the spouse and the service member occurred.

H.R. 2781, Ensuring Veteran Enterprise Participation in Strategic Sourcing Act – this bill directs the VA to work with the General Services Administration to increase the pool of veteran owned small businesses represented on government-wide strategic sourcing contracts.

As the voice for North Carolina’s veterans, Rep. Hudson believes the only way we’re going to get veterans the care they deserve is to break the bureaucratic stronghold at the VA. The first step to do that is allowing all Tier I veterans the option of seeking private care in their own communities and having the VA pay for it, and his legislation, the Care Veterans Deserve Act (H.R. 1152), will do just that.
 
North Carolina is fortunate to be home to more than 700,000 veterans, and taking care of these retired service members and their families is one of Rep. Hudson’s top responsibilities. As always, Rep. Hudson’s office stands ready to assist every veteran in our district with problems they are having with the VA or a federal agency. If a veteran in the 8th district needs assistance, please contact our office in Concord at (704) 786-1612 or our office in Fayetteville at (910) 997-2070.
*hudson.house.gov
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