Thank you Chairman Filner, and thanks to Secretary Shinseki and the Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) for coming to participate in the hearing today.

Among the many important issues that this Congress and Administration must address in the 111th Congress, I wish to highlight two today.  

First, I believe we need to do more to prevent veteran’s suicide.

As we all know, many of our newest generation of veterans, as well as those who served previously, bear wounds that cannot be seen and are hard to diagnose.

Proactively bringing the VA to our veterans, as opposed to waiting for veterans to find the VA, is a critical part of delivering the care they have earned in exchange for their brave service.

At my behest, Secretary Peake overturned VA’s self-imposed ban on television advertising as a method of outreach. Since then, the VA rolled out a public service announcement and outreach campaign to inform veterans and their families about the suicide prevention hotline.

What began as a limited DC area pilot program has been expanded nationally, and it has been effective.  Since its inception in July of 2007, nearly 225,000 calls were received from veterans. And the hotline has been credited with saving 7,000 lives.

While I applaud the VA and Secretary Shinseki for expanding and extending outreach, I believe we need to do more. We need to expand and extend outreach efforts, including the use of twitter, facebook and new media, to let veterans know where they can get help.

Additionally, I believe the VA needs to aggressively reduce the claims backlog. The VA must deliver these earned benefits in a timely manner.

As many have noted, there is a backlog of disability claims that stretches hundreds of thousands of veterans long.  I am pleased that the Administration has requested funding for more than 4,000 new claims processors in their FY 2011 request. However, I believe that the VA needs more than additional manpower to reduce the backlog.

The VA needs a long term strategy and plan.

Doing so, I believe will provide better services to our veterans and increase their morale and confidence in the VA.

Finally, I want to say that I am encouraged by Secretary Shinseki’s commitment to reform the VA, and I look forward to working with him, with my colleagues in Congress, to bring the VA and its services to our veterans in an effective and efficient manner.

Thank you again to all of our witnesses.  I look forward to hearing your perspective on the budget outlook for the VA in the coming fiscal year.