and justice for all. mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: today the senate will begin considering the v.a. mission act. it marks a major step forward for the v.a. system and the millions of heroes who rely on it for services. the bipartisan reform legislation before us builds on the earlier progress of the veterans choice act of 2014 and reaffirms a clear message. delays at the v.a. cannot stand between veterans and the medical care that they need. the shortcomings of a federal bureaucracy do not free our nation from its promises to all our -- our all-volunteer forces. veterans deserve prompt, thorough care, period. in a few short years since the creation of v.a. choice, the program has seen important success. more than two million veterans have taken the opportunity to see private providers when the v.a. system couldn't meet their needs. in kentucky it helped more than 23,000 veterans in 2017 alone. thanks to the leadership...

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the democrat leader. mr. schumer: first, let me thank my friend from georgia for being able to go, and my friend from illinois who has been passionate, strong, and effective when it comes to these nonprofit colleges. he laid out a whole strong case, these for-profit colleges, excuse me. but let me just make one more point which sometimes my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the -- in the trump administration, miss devos, seems to forget. who loses money when these for-profits take advantage of kids? the federal taxpayers, because the vast, vast majority, the overwhelming percentage of funds that go to these for-profit colleges are from federal student loans. so this is a waste of taxpayer money. and somehow our republican colleagues -- not all. some -- and the jumpings are willing to have the treasury just basically in certain ways be looted. and they shrug their shoulders and let the for-profits keep doing it. it's an...