Bob Filner

We owe it to these heroes to not let even one of those VRAP slots go unfilled.

It is time for VA to uphold its responsibility, to our veterans and to the American people, to break this cycle of un-productivity and deliver the benefits that the agency was created to provide.

There is no plan, Ms. Hickey. There is no transformation.

What gives me the confidence? That you were an Air Force General? Sorry, it does not work.

Nothing has worked. It has gotten worse. And you refuse to admit it.

If someone of my constituents is sitting here who has waited three years for a claim adjustment and heard your statement, they would throw up.

This is not a plan. This is not a strategic plan.

Who is responsible for this kind of sloppiness? Who is responsible for this irresponsibility?

We do not need all these thousands of employees and bureaucracy after bureaucracy after bureaucracy.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

Insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and that you expect a different result.

You are so afraid that one veteran is going to commit fraud. I talked to some of your officers and they said, well, there are guys that are going to lie. Come on. Ninety-nine percent of them are not and we can live with one.

What are you so afraid of, of having to accept this massive, massive bureaucracy which you said, Mr. Hall, veterans comes first, but you yourself are not putting the veterans first?

I mean, it is like you are trying to fix a mouse trap that does not work, does not trap mice, just traps veterans.

With all due respect to my friends in the VSOs, as I listened to you, it seemed like you swallowed the Kool-Aid.

I cannot stress too much if you are going to keep doing the same thing, we are going to keep failing.

Say welcome home to our Vietnam vets. Let's grant their Agent Orange claims.

Let's grant those claims. Forget the suffering. Forget all the presumptiveness. Forget all the studies.

You got to do something different, radical, change the whole nature of the situation.

You know what the definition of one definition of insanity is? You try the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

This is disgraceful. This is an insult to our veterans.

I would say to my colleagues on this Committee: let's do something.

If you are given amputation, why should you wait three years for all the other parts of your claim to be adjudicated?

On rollcall 269, I was away from the Capitol due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.'' Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise. The motion was agreed to…