Rep. Delgado Urges Passage of Service-Disabled Veterans Small Business Continuation Act

Gentleman from New York, Jennifer New York is recognized. Thank you. Mister Speaker. Thank you to my friend and colleague Representative Schneider from Illinois. I rise today in support of the first bill I introduced as a member of Congress the bipartisan Service Disabled Veterans Small Business Continuation Act This legislation, which I introduced with members of both sides of the aisle ranking member Shabbat Congressman Jack. Bergman and response to the critical need to ensure that spouses of service disabled veterans can start or continue operating a small business. After the veterans past the spouses, families and loved ones of our service members carry enormous burdens. not only do they make sacrifices to support their loved ones in the military. They're integral to the transition back to civilian life. The service Disabled Veterans Small Business Continuation Act, seeks to address one of the many burdens carried by the spouses of our military veterans. Rightfully so both the small business administration in the V, A give contracting preference to small businesses owned by service disabled veterans. However, currently when a veteran dies only a small handful of spouses can retain that contracting preference. That's because this contracting preference is only given to the spouses of veterans with a hundred percent. Disability spouses of services abled veterans should be able to retain this preference regardless of the veterans Disability rating. This bill makes it. Correction, ensuring that all spouses of service disabled veterans retained federal contracting preference as a service disabled veteran-owned small business no matter the severity of that veteran's injury. This will give surviving spouses the opportunity to remain competitive in the federal contracting market and help ensure that businesses are not up ended after the death of their veteran spouse. I wanna thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their cooperation on this issue and commitment to the families and spouses of our veterans. Caring for our nation's heroes should never be a partisan issue. I urge the House to support this legislation and yield back the balance of my time I Reserve General reserves gentleman from Ohio is recognized.