Veterans deserve VA accountability
Sen. Tommy Tuberville
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It’s Veterans Day in America, a day set aside to honor every veteran.
Taking care of our veterans is a sacred duty. In President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, he resolved our nation to “care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” Lincoln’s statement has carried through the generations and led to the establishment of the Veterans Administration nearly 100 years ago.
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Veterans should have the best medical care in this country, but at times, they have had some of the worst. Under President Barack Obama’s administration, the Phoenix VA became embroiled in a national scandal when a number of veterans died while waiting for care — and VA employees were caught lying about it.
Internal VA audits revealed that employees across the country (not just in Phoenix) were directed by their superiors to falsify the dates of appointments to hide the true length of waiting lists. At least 1,700 veterans were waiting for care and were never put on an official waitlist, and as many as 40 veterans died waiting to see their doctors.
This was a disgrace — and one we should not forget. But most of those involved in this scandal kept their jobs, and even VA leadership could not fire them. This was a slap in the face to veterans, and it prevented the problem from being fixed.
When President Donald Trump came into office, Congress passed, on a bipartisan basis, a bill called the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. This federal law gave the VA the power to fire employees for cause, including for poor performance or grievous misconduct. This led to the firing of more than 5,000 VA employees who weren’t doing their jobs.
The results were overwhelmingly positive for both the VA and the veterans it serves. Employee satisfaction with senior leaders’ honesty and integrity increased from 45% in 2016 to 59% by 2020. People were happier to work in an environment where everyone had to do their jobs. More importantly, veterans’ trust in the VA rose as well, hitting 90% in early 2020.
This was an all-too-rare success story in good government. There was a serious problem, and Congress took action to fix it. A bipartisan Congress got this exactly right.
But now, this effective, commonsense law passed by Congress is being undermined by the Biden administration.
The Biden administration has reached a lawsuit settlement in which the VA has agreed to stop using the firing authority that Congress gave it. The law remains on the books, but now, the Biden administration has promised not to use it. They’ve taken one of the most valuable tools the VA has and simply thrown it in the trash.
To add insult to injury, the VA settlement will also mean that the VA will give back pay to most of the 5,000 employees who were fired for cause. This is taxpayer money for people who were fired for good reason — for jobs they didn’t do. Many of these same employees are being hired back, including 74 VA employees in my home state of Alabama.
This is a disaster for the taxpayer and for our veterans. It puts all of the gains made since 2017 in jeopardy. The VA’s new culture of accountability will be gone. Veterans will undoubtedly receive lower-quality care.
Members of VA leadership who have testified before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, on which I serve, tell Congress that everything is fine. I don’t believe them — and more importantly, veterans don’t believe them. We don’t want to go back to the bad old days of the Obama administration.
That’s why I have joined legislation in the Senate to restore the VA Accountability Act to its full Trump-era strength. Our legislation would cut bureaucratic red tape to allow VA leaders to discipline employees who aren’t doing their jobs.
Most VA employees do their jobs every day — and we are thankful for them. But we saw in the Obama years that it only takes a few bad actors to lead to long waiting lists and even veterans dying while waiting in line. It’s time for the Senate to pass this legislation into law before all of the improvements made at the VA under Trump are lost.