The way advanced appropriations work. I support that and the frustration i have here is the billion dollars we spent. Last year about this time chairman remembers this very well, where we couldnt have an integrated Electronic Health record where the va and dod we flushed a billion dollars and still cant make it work. Thats something that i think this is my sixth year here. I cannot understand in todays technology why a veteran Service Member cant lead and electronically transfer their record. It hasnt been explained to me. It is coming down. I salute the secretary on that. He has a real commitment to that. The two things that i really am passionate about are Homeless Veterans. I think its heartbreaking when you see a veteran sleeping under a bridge that honorably served this country. We had the hud vouchers and that has come down. I salute general shinseki for that. Thats one of our problems at home. Weve got to work on a place to house Homeless Veterans and people to go ahead and get
Serviceconnected disability compensation, safe and High Quality Health Care and prompt access to earned benefits. It demands that in dealing with the department of Veterans Affairs, veterans be treated with the dignity and professionalism that is earned through Honorable Service to our nation. The need for oversight is crucial. But it is the need for accountability that is paramount. Speaking directly to th must set the example. True leaders lay out clear expectations, putst others in positions to succeed, they follow through, and most importantly hold themselvess accountable for their actions of the follow me. That is the motto of the infantry. Yet those word can be easily translated to okayizational leadership at va. When there is a mission to be accomplished those who put themselves on the line are the leaders that others want to follow. And, it iacs a lack of accountability that corrodes trust within a chain of command. That said, an undeniable, widespread, simtic lack of accountab
Request i want to thank you, mr. Chairman, for allowing me to ask that question in case i have to leave. Thank you. Senator heller. Thank you for your testimony and everybody thats here today. Its good to see you here. At 4 30 this afternoon i have the secretary coming into my office and im going to ask him a lot of questions. Im going to ask him obviously about the veterans backlog issue and progress if any are being made. The issue of lack of communication between my office and reno will be another question that im going to ask and hopefully get a good answer for. But there are other questions that you might think that i should ask him. Are there any questions, if you were talking to the secretary today, what question would that be, and im going to take notes and this is your chance to advocate. I wouldnt presume, sir, to tell you what to ask the secretary, although the secretary is an Airborne Ranger like me, so he is my friend. He has told me that he will reduce the backlog by 2015
Get a fully develop the claim . I would make just a general comment before i turn this over to my staff. We believe that the reduction of the backlog is a combination of a claim process and dbqs and then also accountability thats passed onto the review officers. We think those three things are exactly the types of answers to not only reduce the claims but to a manageable level but then reduce the backlog entirely. Let me if i can ask a followup question, i know they work hard to encourage veterans be served to file as complete a claim as possible, but i also recognize they need options to file any way they want. Whether that is on that forum or perhaps on paper. Is that accurate and can you explain why its important that veterans still have the option to file a claim any way they want . Ill defer that to the staff. Its important that veterans still have the opportunity to file a claim, paper on the standard or regular form. Currently they can take that regular piece of paper or as many
The senate, it would be our belief that this would have greater practical appeal to our leaders. And so we think this approach would enable us to reach unanimous consent as to an initial set of relevant amendments to be considered so that we could then move forward expeditiously when the senate turns to the bill. I hope our colleagues will help us in this matter. I think its in everybodys interest, its in the National Security interest that we have a bill before us. We have to pass a bill in order to go to conference with the house or else were put in the same kind of position we were in last year, where we just simply present what amounted to a conference report before a bill had ever been really debated in the senate. We and our staff, working with colleagues, put together what amounted to a conference report which was not a conference report in technical terms but was in effect the work product of both the senate and the house and our committees by the process of negotiation. So our