Hello a speaker of the house. It is my pri hello, as speaker of the house it is my privilege to welcome you all to the celebration of awe inspiring courage and resilience. Today we gather virtually to bestow congresss highest honor, the congressional gold medal, on nearly 3000 american heroes merrills marauders. Let us salute the family and friends who have continued to tell the story of these brave warriors, and advocated for the recognition they deserve. Thank you to the u. S. Army leaders joining us today, including secretary of the Army Christine mormoth and army chief of staff general james mcconnell. Let us recognize the members of congress who worked to make this momentous event possible, including the late senator Johnny Isaacson, who showed his Great Respect for our veterans through his the leadership of Veterans Affairs committee. A champion of marauders legacy and former congressman, peter cain, also ever voice for our nations veterans. Finally, thank you to all of those joi
Support for Military Spouses and families. Thousands of Companies Big and small have had Great Success at hiring veterans in the past decade. As most of you know before i came to congress i ran a familyowned trucking business and had the pleasure of knowing, we hired people from world war ii that worked hard most of their lives, korean war, vietnam war, and continued the tradition. When veterans applied for the positions, i always made sure to give them the opportunities to thrive, as did my grandfather and father. As a veteran myself, i knew that the service ingrained in the veterans does not just go away when they take off the uniform. They possess exceptional teambuilding skills and are highly trusted by colleagues in the workplace. We have seen this firsthand the way a veteran higher can benefit any business over 3 million americans are employed and together these companies contribute to the economy. An incredible investment over 74 of businesses are founded by a veteran rather tha
Lettere also forwarded a to the entire Wisconsin Legislature directed at our physical our federal legislators and President Trump to immediately pass background checks, bump stock bands, and to allow the cdc to do the Important Research of guns on Public Safety and public health. I think it would be very powerful in every state sent a letter federally to your delegation calling for action, not just pursue these policies in your state, too, which is always a great option. I have a letter we are currently going to send from our wisconsin delegation if youre interested in taking that are adopting some of that. It would be superpowerful if we had all of our delegations come all of our states send a letter, calling on congress to finally act and this president to act on these very common sense gun safety measures. Just see me if you are interested, he would like to see the letter we are sending. Thanks everybody. [applause] ok, let me introduce our next panel. It is fantastic to be here and
Subcommittee on health and subcommittee on Economic Opportunity on veteran homelessness. I want to apologize for being late. I had another obligation in my responsibility on the budget committee. My colleague, chair of the Health Subcommittee wont be able to make it so im going to preside. We have subcommittee brownlee and her capable leadership and my friend from texas and Ranking Member on the subcommittee for Economic Opportunity is joining me as well. We have our chairman joining us so thank you, dr. Rowe, for coming. I want to begin by asking for unanimous consent for congressman mike kaufman, congressman scott peters and i guess thats it, to sit in on the dais and participate in todays hearing. I dont hear any objection. So ordered. Im going to cut through my remarks here and break from my customary reading of script and just say that this is a subject that is heartbreaking. And when you look at the statistics on veterans homelessness and the underlying issues that our veterans s
America. This epidemic of mass slaughter, this scorch of School Shooting. Fter School Shooting it only happens here not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequence of our inaction. Amy we will speak with the head of the coalition to stop gun violence and a former Florida State legislator during the time shooting was two years ago. She took on the Florida Governor. Then kept out. For people of color, things are shutting the door to homeownership. Here we have the likelihood so black applicants in philadelphia are almost three times as likely to be denied a traditional mortgage. Reveal found this troubling pattern and dozens of cities. Philadelphia was one of the largest. 61 metros across the country, applicants of color are more likely to be denied conventional mortgage, even if they have the same financial characteristics of a nonhispanic, white applicant. Amy we will look at modern day redlining 50 years after lbj signed the Fair Housing Act banning Racial Di