Daniel Akaka

I have been working with OPM to increase the use of telework in the Federal Government and my Telework Enhancement Act was signed into law last year.

We owe you, I think, as a veteran with a disability, a debt and should honor that by offering you Federal employment.

This is a critical tool. We have, again--I cannot say enough about the Department of Defense CAP program.

People with disabilities tend to leave Federal service at a higher rate than other employees.

If USERRA is not going to be applied, then I agree with Christine Griffin that certainly the Federal Government should be a place where veterans should be more than welcome.

I am eager to hear from our witnesses today about the progress they have made as well as what more needs to be done.

The only way to actually get rid of attitudinal barriers is to hire people with disabilities.

The Federal Government must work to reverse this trend by setting an example of successfully hiring and accommodating people with disabilities.

If we can convince supervisors and workers, both in the Federal workforce and elsewhere, that there is not a sharp divide between people with disabilities, otherwise known as 'them,' and everyone else in the workplace, often known as 'us,'…

Fulfilling this sacred obligation is dependent on DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) cooperation.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for appearing today.

I again want to say thank you to the Committee Members, this Subcommittee, and I want to say thanks to our staff.

Today, we hold our seventh hearing on security clearance issues, and I am pleased to say that we have seen tremendous progress throughout the course of our oversight work.

I want to welcome this panel to the Subcommittee and also thank my brother and good friend, Senator Voinovich, for his leadership here.

It is our responsibility and that of our witnesses today to correct these problems in order to preserve homeownership and provide much needed relief to distressed borrowers.

Borrowers rightly expect their mortgage lenders and servicers to work in good faith to help them keep their homes.

Homeowners are under a tremendous amount of financial stress right now, which is what makes the recent reports of problems within the mortgage servicing industry all the more troubling.

Foreclosure should be servicer's last resort, not its preferred outcome.

We urgently need that funding.

Too many homeowners in our country have faced the threat of foreclosures, and hearing our witnesses here, I think of Hawaii as suffering from this.

We must do more to help distressed borrowers and preserve homeownership.

You also testified that measuring the work output of each work unit would help SSA more accurately measure productivity and direct its resources.

It would put ALJs on equal footing with other senior-level Federal employees and would be a valuable tool for recruiting talented attorneys from the private sector to government service.

Thanks to the Recovery Act and increased funding, your agency was able to hire thousands of new employees.

I commend Director Berry for doing that because I think it is a step in the right direction.