Jon Tester

The fundamental thing you're doing in this bill is putting an absolute very clear set of numbers out there.

I think that if there's an issue in the language of the bill that could stop proper implementation, then we need language that's going to work.

Congress did not intend when they wrote the original Post-9/11 GI Bill for it ever to be implemented that way.

Getting these benefits and processes right requires all hands on deck, and we appreciate your work.

Senator Tester, this legislation will address every area of concern the VFW has with improving the GI Bill.

We have got a problem. How are we going to deal with it?

If you were going to pick one thing that you would like to see changed in S. 3447 as an improvement, what would it be?

Iraq and Afghanistan vets are coming back, and their unemployment rate is about 12.5 percent, which is higher than the national average.

Of those 153,000, how many were overpayments?

I have advocated for a VA education rep in Montana.

Do you anticipate the upgraded IT system will be adequately ready to handle the delivery of new benefits proposed by this bill?

I think we need more of a partnership, better communication if we're going to get to the bottom and get all that stuff fixed.

I ask all Members of this Committee to support the provision within S. 3447 that would, at last, extend Post-9/11 GI Bill transferability to the PHS Commissioned Corps and the NOAA Corps.

I guess the question is that I think it was this month you were going to finish looking into who was overpaid and who was underpaid.

We all agree that this new GI Bill is a good thing, and we all agree that it is going to have its glitches as it moves forward.

I want to thank you for your leadership, as always, and good luck at the signing.

The Chairman's bill makes eligible for GI benefits a number of National Guardsmen who had been inadvertently left out of the original bill.

Communication is the biggest problem we have got right now from our perspective in Montana.

It's important to remember that the schools are the ones who must help the veteran navigate through the red tape.

I think this is unacceptable because it puts the veteran in an overpayment status that I do not think is right.

Ultimately, that is our goal.

The goal is to reduce it down to a reasonable amount of time.

I think the bottom line is this, we need to get some VA personnel on the ground listening to Montanans.

I am just curious what the timeframe is to reach that goal.

Eighty percent. So, 80 percent of those on that list that we are looking at right there, that says 'Chapter 33 Claims Processing Tasks,' will be automated.