Rights issues. Shes also chair of the institutes Human Trafficking advisory consults. This is vickie kennedy, an accomplished attorney and a nonprofit leaders. She advises government issues and regulatory issues. Shes the president of the board and the cofounder of the Kennedy Institute for the study of the senate and a nonpartisan and nonprofit, dazzling and a beautiful building here in boston that educates the public of the unique role of the United States senate in our democracy. Theyll be in conferring with gary hill. Those of us in massachusetts know of her public leadership and Lieutenant Governor, she was the president and a former resident fellow here at the institute. Join me welcoming Lieutenant Governor healy and mrs. Mccain and mrs. Kennedy. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for those kinds introductions. I am so excited to be able to have this conversation with both of you today. I think with the backdrop of everything that is going on with the country r
The Committee Meets today to receive testimony from the department of defense fiscal year 2021 budget request. Welcome our witnesses and thank them for their service in both dr. Mark esper and general mark we have a pair of marks in this morning. This committees top priority is ensuring the effectiveness of the National Defense strategy. Thats our vote that we had heard, adhere for a long period of time now. About three years. Unfortunately, the last administration we ask our military to do more with less and that got us into trouble between 2012 and 2017 we lost 150 billion to sequestration. Our Defense Budget in the readiness of our forces were devastated. I think we all understand that. As a result, when President Trump came to office, he inherited American Military and crisis, thankfully he delivered on his promise to begin rebuilding the u. S. Armed forces. He negotiated the highest level of defense spending ever, a down payment toward getting our military back to where it needs t
I want to start by noting that the committee has been particularly supportive as the staff and the oversight investigation subcommittee for their work on this issue and their work with our agency we consider it to be a Real Partnership and we are very grateful for this committees support. We have received a number of referrals from this committee and we appreciate your confidence and ability to work with the employees that your office refers. So thats one thing. Its already happening. We are doing everything that we possibly can. Weve set up a priority system and we free allocated staff to handle the va employee claims. But as the numbers increase its a very hard to keep up. We were at capacity before. In the retaliation cases now it exceeds 130, and the number as i mentioned continues to increase pretty much daily. We are an agency that has 120 employees more or less. We have jurisdiction for the statute for the reemployment rights act and we are working now on a demonstration for the
Getting Senior Leadership bonuses and the same interest we put in attaching ourselves to highprofile projects is what the same amount of attention that needs to go to veterans. So i encourage you guys if nothing else, please make sure that we move to a system that has more data integrity. Require the people who come here and sit on these panels to sign off on the information they turn into congress. This way when they come back, they cant say that report was done by somebody else. Thats the only way. Hold them accountable and do it in public and while the cameras are on. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Committee come to order. And that includes the former senator from connecticut, who is sitting in the audience behind senator markey. Chris, nice to see you. I think all of us were forward thinking until you and eddie showed up. It will be a close call now. See if we cant get it through. Try to get it done. Senator markey, i dont know what kind of time frame youre on. If you can give
Im chuck todd. Pac show for you, i promise. My first reads of the morning, nearly two years ago, president obama gave a speech in el paso calling for Immigration Reform, stronger Board Security and a path to citizenship. El paso, the question is whether those in congress who previously walked away in the name of enforcement are now ready to come back to the table and finish the work that weve started. Well, now that a Bipartisan Group of senators have come back to the table, the president today will praise the principles this group of eight laid out calling for the country to get behind in senate plan. As white house Senior Advisor dan pfeiffer just tweeted, today, potus will applaud the Bipartisan Senate agreement consistent with his longheld view and lay out his vision for Immigration Reform. The Washington Post is the reporting the white house has develop the its own Immigration Reform plan more liberal than the senate outline. Yes, there is a plan that the white house has. But for