On the recordFebruary 25, 2014
I would like to spend a little bit of time offering a viewpoint different from the viewpoint of the chairman of the committee on this bill. First of all, I want to say by context that my father and his two brothers all served in World War II. My two brothers served during the Vietnam era. There is no question we have an obligation to meet our commitments to those who have put their lives and futures on the line for this country. But it pains me that, although we have increased spending 58 percent in the VA programs since 2009, which was fiscal year 2010, what we have seen is a complete lack of oversight of what is happening. Let my give an example. The VA Committee in the Senate last year held 30 hearings, 4 of which were oversight. If you read the transcripts of those hearings, you cannot call them oversight hearings even though they were billed as oversight hearings. Why is that important? It is important because there are a multitude of significant, serious problems in the Veterans' Administration. Just 2 days ago it was discovered that in an L.A.…





