Everyone is quick to jump on the band wagon blaming the VA for the enormous backlog of Veterans benefits claims and the years needed to adjudicate even the most simple of problem.
This Congressman in particular likes to rant about the VA not doing anything (My opinion? He is the pot to the VA’s kettle). Or maybe he is just wanting a bigger campaign contribution from the Fat Cats at this VSO.
Congress Bears a LOT of Responsibility, too.
In June 2013, separate versions of the Veterans Benefits Claims Faster Filing Act were proposed in the US House and Senate.
That’s a GREAT title for a bill, and it led me to take a look to see how Congress would make “Claims Filing Faster”.
Here’s what the bill proposes: When a Veteran files a claim, the VA must provide notice of the timeline for that claim.
This left me scratching my head.
Here is the impact of such a claim: the VA will have to spend more money and more time printing out yet another notice to mail to the Veteran. This notice does absolutely nothing to improve the backlog.
Hell, you can already find this information out if you are willing to read the VA’s monday morning work reports.
Congress is Just Adding More Bureaucracy to a Bloated Bureaucracy.
In the private sector, if you are going to fix a problem, the first thing you must do is “Create Capacity”. You have to free up enough time to allow key personnel to explore and implement solutions to the problem.
Congress – stop adding more work to the VA’s plate by proposing this law – how about doing some work yourselves?
The least wealthy among you is worth $12.1 million dollars – unless y’all are pocketing campaign money, you have to have SOME business acumen, right?
If you want real results at the VA – and not lip-service and cool-sounding legislation for election time sound-bites – you have to start thinking about serious legislation to reform and revamp the VA Claims process.
Veterans call your Congressional representatives and tell them to stop proposing frivolous legislation and start proposing serious legislation.
Until that happens, Congress is a part of the problem and not a part of the solution.