I am very proud of my newly elected Congressman John Hall (NY-19). He is about to introduce legislation to halt bonuses paid to the VA officials who have performed so badly and yet are still rewarded. Democratic politics is good for the military and good for America and if you know NY-19, good for the district too.
Excerpt from CNN:
"'It is shocking and scandalous even by the VA's own low standards that top officials at the VA would get performance bonuses when there's a backlog of over 600,000 cases,' said Hall, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on disability assistance."
Please feel free to give John Hall's lovely and talented constituency outreach person a call at: 202-225-5441 or 202-225-3289 or drop him an email and let them know what you think.
Also, Rep. Hall is a freshman and is in a R+1 district. Please donate!
IMO, this is a good way to give an incentive to all the people responsible for the terrible backlog of cases at the VA. I hope this sends a clear message that we will not tolerate spending billions of dollars on a bureaucratic nightmare. Veterans need care and they need it right away and a half-year backlog is completely unacceptable. As somebody contemplating military service it makes me feel a whole lot better that somebody is making sure the job is getting done.
I have lived so very long under my old Congresswoman Sue Kelly(R) that I forgot what it felt like to have good representation. This is very poignant in light of the recent happenings and will hopefully serve as one more reminder of the Democrats' dedication to our troops and John Hall's dedication to his district (where I grew up there is a rather large VA facility called Castle Point).
Since the story has already been picked up by quite a few MSM sources I will just sprinkle in a few quotations to give you readers a better idea of what is going on.
An excerpt from the Boston Herald:
"Currently, the backlog of claims ranges from between 400,000 to more than 600,000, with delays averaging 177 days. "
From CBS:
"Annual bonuses to senior VA officials now average more than $16,000 - the most lucrative in government."