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Rubio Campaign Press Release - A Path For Reforming The VA

October 19, 2015

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Tampa Bay Times,October 19, 2015

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the second-largest federal agency, with more than 350,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $159 billion. Yet today — more than a year after scores of veterans died while stuck on secret wait lists — mountains of backlogged disability claims, wide-scale construction overruns and a serious lack of accountability continue to plague the agency.

Instead of being given the benefits they have earned, veterans' disability applications have been shredded, while whistleblowers who expose this corruption face retaliation. Time and time again, too many senior VA officials have proven incapable of serving those who have served our country. . . .

The incompetence at the VA is unacceptable. Negligence continues to go unpunished while our nation's heroes are dying. We must stand together as a nation to ensure that our veterans receive the care they deserve. It's why earlier this year, House VA Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and I introduced the VA Accountability Act of 2015, a commonsense reform bill to end the culture of unaccountability by giving the VA secretary additional authorities to remove or demote any VA employee based on performance or misconduct. . . .

As President Lincoln said, our nation has a duty "to care for him who shall have borne the battle." The House companion to the VA Accountability Act has already passed there, and it should become the law of the land. Shockingly, President Barack Obama has issued a veto threat, leaving just one question: Are we going to stand with our nation's veterans or the VA's inept bureaucrats?

Read the full op-ed here.

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Marco Rubio, Rubio Campaign Press Release - A Path For Reforming The VA Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/313388

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