Congress Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2009--Continued
Floor Speech
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009--Continued -- (Senate - March 12, 2008)
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Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I, too, wish to thank the Budget Committee chairman and express my appreciation for his hard work and that of the ranking member for their diligence throughout this budget process.
I would also like to thank my colleague from Massachusetts for the many ways that he affects the lives of Americans all across this great Nation in support of a multitude of things but without a doubt in terms of higher education and in making that opportunity available to young adults across this country who want to reach their potential, who want to give back to their country, and through reaching that potential are able to add more of the gift they have to give this world and certainly to our Nation. His tireless work in those areas has been unbelievably important to students in Arkansas--I know myself, having gone to school with a student loan--but without a doubt realizing that potential, realizing that opportunity, and making it available for Americans all across this country. Senator Kennedy has done tremendous work, and we applaud that.
I also again want to applaud Chairman Conrad, who has done a phenomenal job in bringing together a budget that I believe truly reflects the values of this country and the values of the American people. The budget is a blueprint document. It is a place for us to really express our priorities as a Congress. We move forward with a budget that we hope reflects the things we hear from our constituencies and the ways they want to see their Nation, their Government, investing in this country.
They want to see us investing in the education, the human capital that is going to continue to make this country great. They want to see us investing in infrastructure and in children, in health care and in opportunity, where we can improve on all of these many things; investments in rural America as well as the needs that exist in our urban areas.
It is a tough job to balance all of that and truly reflect our values as Americans, because we are diverse. It is one of the greatest things about being a part of this Nation, to know that region upon region is different, and individuals in those regions are different. But the fact is, we are all under one common denominator--Americans. As a country and as a government, we want to see that investment in who we all are. I think the chairman has painstakingly looked at how we combine in this budget the values, the morals, and the issues of who we are and the investments we want to make and setting those as priorities as we move forward in the process we have.
My purpose for rising today is a simple one, and that is to better ensure that the men and women who have courageously served our Nation in uniform receive the benefits to which they are entitled in a more timely manner.
Last year, we came before the Budget Committee and set forth our priorities. One was very similar to what Senator Kennedy was just visiting about, and that was to ensure that our Guard and Reserve are going to get the educational benefits they deserve, the ones they had earned.
Our Guard and Reserve have been called to duty in a much different way in the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan than we have seen ever before, and making sure their rewards and their incentives for education are commensurate with the Active-Duty members they are fighting alongside is important. We were successful with that, we were successful in ensuring their ability to access those benefits in a timely way, because before they only had 1 year. Now we have given them more time to be able to access those benefits when they return home out of theater and out of Active Duty.
This, again, is another issue in terms of timeliness, in how we respond to our veterans and the courageous men and women who serve us. The amendment that will be offered on my behalf momentarily--and I will be offering it with my friend and colleague from Maine, Senator OLYMPIA SNOWE--would do just that on timeliness. We are joined by Senators BIDEN, CLINTON, MIKULSKI, and PRYOR.
Mr. President, I would also like to ask unanimous consent that my colleague, Senator Lieberman, be added as a cosponsor as well.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. LINCOLN. I would also note that we had 25 Senators who joined us in a letter to the Budget Committee recently requesting this as a priority in the budget, and I would encourage my colleagues to take a look at this amendment and join us because it is truly the right thing to do.
This amendment would provide an additional $50 million for the Veterans Benefits Administration.
In the scheme of things, and how we talk about things in Washington, $50 million is not a great deal. It is not a huge amount in the overall scheme of the dollars we talk about in our Nation's budget. But we believe it can truly make a difference in providing the Veterans Benefits Administration with the additional resources it desperately needs to more effectively meet its increasing workload and its unacceptability in terms of the large backlog of pending claims.
In recent years, Congress has taken the lead in tackling the claims backlog and improving the management of the VBA. In last year's budget, much needed resources were provided to increase the number of claims processing staff essential to reducing the pending claims backlog and improving the timeliness of that claims process.
There is not a Member in this body, I am sure, who has not dealt with, in their constituent services and their casework, the issues of veterans' benefits that have been backlogged, the time it takes to get these veterans the benefits they deserve. They have fought hard for this country and need and deserve those benefits.
The leadership and guidance of Chairman Akaka and Chairman Conrad and their staffs certainly made all of this possible. Today we seek to invest further in the commitment we already made in last year's budget and what we were pushing forward and were successful in, in terms of additional funding for the VBA dealing with that backlog of cases.
According to the Veterans Benefits Administration's Workload Report from March 8, 2008, the total number of pending compensation and pension claims was 666,710. That was up from 627,429 this time last year. So we are seeing an increase in our caseload while all the while we still have a backlog in those cases that are pending.
The amount that has been pending for more than 180 days is nearly 27 percent. Additionally, claims requiring a disability rating determination, which are the most time consuming and resource intensive to the process, have increased more than 50 percent since 2003.
This is inexcusable--veterans who return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans who are out there with disability claims from other circumstances, who have been put into these backlogs. It is continuing to grow. We are only asking for $50 million to be able to improve upon that situation for these veterans.
Between the fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2007, the number of filed claims increased 45 percent, from almost 579,000 to 838,000. For fiscal year 2009, the VA, which has consistently underestimated its workload in the past, projects the number to increase to approximately 872,000. These numbers are increasing and we have to get a handle on it so we can stop those overloads and certainly the workloads that are backlogged.
Further, the VA cautions that ongoing hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan could increase its workload even further. So we know unfortunately there is not going to be a lessening. There is only, more than likely, going to be an increase. We have to make sure we have the resources there.
In light of all these mounting challenges, this amendment would provide an additional $50 million to the VBA's general administration account so it would have the flexibility to explore pilot programs and invest more in training or technology initiatives to help tackle the claims backlog. This is not a process that is going to go away if we do not address it. It is simply not fair to our veterans.
It complements the recommendations that are provided in the Budget Views and Estimates from both the House and Senate Committees on Veterans' Affairs. As discussed in those documents----
(Disturbance in the Visitors' Gallery.)
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Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, there are many passionate pleas we hear across our country. Hopefully, the passionate
pleas we make here on the floor of the Senate on behalf of our constituents can be seen as passionate as many we witness--some here today, and certainly others. I continue with my passionate plea on behalf of the soldiers, the brave American men and women who serve this great country. In what we have seen in the backlog, through the Veterans' Administration, certainly it is an indication that we can do a better job in providing those benefits to the service men and women who have done such a courageous job on behalf of this great Nation and all of us.
What I recommended in my amendment are recommendations that I think complement the recommendations provided in the Budget Views and Estimates from both the House and Senate Committees on Veterans' Affairs. Again, I thank Chairman Akaka for all of his hard work and Chairman Conrad for working with us on this issue.
Our veterans are a very passionate issue to many of us, coming from a
family where my dad was an infantryman in Korea. We talked earlier about the impression our families leave on us. Senator Conrad mentioned his grandmother who believed in education. I grew up in a household very much like that. My husband did as well. My husband's grandmother is going to be 111 this year and she is still preaching education. She is still on her own, still out there making sure that every child who got her Christmas letter this year knew the importance of education. Certainly, without a doubt, those of us who grew up in households that had tremendous respect for the patriots, the brave and courageous men and women who serve this country in the Armed Forces, deserve that same kind of passion.
We discussed in those documents, coming to a close here, that it is imperative for the Veterans Benefits Administration to make greater investments in the training programs to prepare new hires for the complicated process of compensation claims adjudication.
Additionally, workload production initiatives such as technological improvements offer the hope of reducing additionally the average time for a claims decision. The brave men and women who have served our Nation in uniform should be a priority for each one of us. As we hear all kinds of conversation and talk about people's positions on whether we should be in conflict, whether we should be engaged in war, there should be no debate, there should be no conflict, in whether those who are serving this country in uniform deserve to be sure that the benefits they have earned and they deserve are rightly in place for them, and something they can use, not set about waiting 180 days to hear back from somebody to tell them they have yet another 180 days to wait until they actually get those benefits. The number of veterans who contact my office for help grows each year, and I am sure it does in the offices of many of my colleagues. Unfortunately, the backlog is often denying them the benefits they desperately need for years; not just weeks or days, but years. It is simply unacceptable.
The lessons ingrained in me since childhood have taught me that after a person has served in the military, we should make absolutely every effort, not just priority but every effort, to fund and make real their benefits and to honor those individuals who have earned them and care for them and their families, those who have served this great country. It is the least we can do for those to whom we owe so much. It is the least we can do to reassure future generations, and those who are serving in the field today, that a grateful nation will not forget them when their military service is complete.
Mr. President, I thank the chairmen for working with us, hopefully, again, as passionately as the passion that has been displayed in this Chamber today about people's views on military service and certainly the conflict in Iraq. We can make good on the promise we made to our soldiers who have served so courageously and bravely.
I thank the Chair, and I yield back the floor.
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