FIGHTING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

AND HAVING TO FIGHT THE STATE GOVERNMENT TOO

WHY OUR VETRANS ARE BEING ABUSED

AND SOME ADVISE TO THOSE STILL SERVING

 

 

Much has been said lately about the backlog of claims at the Veterans Administration. What has not been said or reported is the fact that the main stream media, including Fox News, has only reported on about two thirds (2/3) of the reported backlog. What they are not reporting is the nearly three hundred thousand (300,000) cases of backloged education benefits for veterans.

 

Now this may seem trivial to some people, but it is proving to be devistating to those veterans. Many are having to lower there class work load and take on jobs just to stay in school. Others are having to drop out of school all together. How can this country turn it's back on our veterans this way? How can a retired General allow this to happen?

 

It has been pointed out that the backlog in 2009 was around eleven thousand (11,000) claims that exceeded the one hundred and twenty five (125) day average time to process. In 2012 that number has exploded to two hundred and thirty five thousand (235,000). How is that possible? The Veterans Administration has received an all new computer system. It has the second largest budget in the federal government only exceded by the Defense Department, aand has been working on the problem for teo years now. In Congressional Testomony it was revealed that it was only in March of this year that the Veterans Administration authorized overtime to it's employees to help clear the backlog of claims. That doesn't sound like they were making a good faith effort to help veterans to me.



 

Then we get to the great state of Oklahoma and their politicians. What are they doing, or rather not doing to help pur veterans. Recently the Oklahoma House of Representative passed a bill by a vote of 97-0-4 that would have seen to Isobaric Chamber Treatment for our veterans that suffer from PTSD and TBI. This treatment has been proven to work and return these severly disabled veterans to the workforce. The Senate passed the bill also, but with one big difference.

 

You see Senator Jolley in his committee and Senator Simpson in his committee both recommended the bill be passed without an effective date. That way they could get away with saying they passed the bill, yet there would be no money spent to help the veterans, because the bill would never go into effect. Talk about your screw job. The reason they did this was because the House of Representatives refused to here any bills that dealt with funding the Tulsa POP Museum and the Oklahoma City Native American Cultural Center. These were both projects wanted by the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, which owns the Oklahoma State Senate, and basically told these two Senators to do this.

 

The bottom line is these two Senators have taken a play out of the Obama play book and denied Oklahoma Veterans a chance to get their lives back. This is  a shameful act by these two Senators, the entire Oklahoma Senate and the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce. Snator Jolley is term limited and won't be running again. Senator Simpson is in his first term and shows signs of running again. Lets make sure he has a losing bid.