House Committee on Veterans' Affairs

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Washington, D.C. – Ranking Republican Member Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) made the following statement after the conclusion of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Full Committee Roundtable entitled “CRISIS:  The VA Shreds Veterans’ Confidence”:

“Although I was unable to attend the discussion because of House Republican leadership elections, I believe that the roundtable was a useful step in what is going to be a long process.  Many veterans have lost confidence in VA due to the disclosure of the shredding incident.  I applaud the Under Secretary for Benefits, Patrick Dunne, for his acknowledgement of this lack of trust in the system and his willingness to work with veteran service organizations and Congress to correct the mistakes.  The current situation is clearly unacceptable.

I am encouraged that several of the solutions and suggestions that were mentioned by roundtable participants were included in The Veterans’ Improvement Act of 2008, P.L. 110-389, which was signed by President Bush on October 10, 2008.  These provisions include:

          - A review and reformulation of VA’s work credit system (Sec. 226)

          - An independent audit of VA’s training and quality assurance programs

            (Sec.  224)

          - A new rules based adjudication system that is completely paperless.

            (Sec. 227)

This legislation was thoughtfully drafted by members of both parties and if VA properly implements this new law many of the problems raised during today’s discussion could be avoided in the future. 

There is an ongoing investigation of this incident by the Office of the Inspector General and when it is completed the Committee should look at this matter again early in the next Congress.”
 

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