Mike Bost

And I want to thank the Chairman and the excellent staff on this Committee for their hard work and their bipartisan cooperation to make sure that we are all, to the best possible, rowing in the same direction and doing our level best every…

I also want to say a special thank you to the staff. The staff has been wonderful, both Republican and Democrat staff, hardworking.

It has been one of the greatest honors that you could ever imagine being Chairman of this Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to share the American Legion's position on these vital issues impacting the men and women who have selflessly defended this Nation.

Well, I want to thank the panel for being with us. We did two rounds of questioning, and we have another panel that is coming forward.

This Committee, bipartisan, is going to be the best partners that we can be with you, because we want results just like you do.

I want to know from this Committee's standpoint that we have the commitment that that is going to be the case where your staff--your group as a whole is going to be aggressive to make sure that anyone that is owed is found out that they…

As you go back and try to figure out these errors and then live up to the commitment to make someone whole, is it going to have to be done through the tech people that you were working with originally?

This GI thing is big, okay. And we want to know, and I think the people deserve to know.

Your announcement of making it very clear to us and to the public that it is to make all of our GI veterans whole and/or also then not to--and hold them harmless for those who may have been overpaid is a good start for this hearing.

Unfortunately, according to the IG, it looks like the VA does not take these commonsense steps when it develops new programs.

With that, thank you to the witnesses for participating in the hearing, and with that, I will also yield to the Ranking Member for any closing statement that she might have.

And the problem we all have, as Members of Congress, is the fact that we go back and talk to our constituents, and then we have to answer to them, for where our levels of bureaucracy have failed, where they should have never been put in…

Just real quick, because I am going to run out of time, I am afraid, but what are you doing as far as, from here on out, to do the proper audits, to make sure that we know and you know that the contractor is doing everything they are…

So, Mr. Christy or Ms. Devlin, either one, so what are we -- what are our plans in the future to make sure that we actually have penalties and have those things in place to make sure they are doing the timeliness and all of the things that…

I am concerned the VA chose to expand a potentially $6.8 billion program without having the necessary controls in place to hold the vendors accountable.

I want to thank everyone for being here, both the witnesses and the Members.

Providing exams within a reasonable time frame is very important to the compensation-claims process.

Is there some implementation being done there as well?

If we are spending all this money and effort, I mean, incredible programs that you all set up, why is the rate still 20?

And I want to personally thank you, Tim, for the work you have done.

Thank you for the work that you do over here, over here.

The people of Cairo and surrounding areas deserve justice.

It is my belief that had HUD taken these issues more seriously, we may not be here today.

Today's hearing is about government's failure to protect its most vulnerable of us.