Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I thank you both, Chairman Filner and Chairman Akaka, for holding this joint hearing for the second session of the 110th Congress.  I am always encouraged to see the two chambers unite for the single goal of providing the highest attention and respect to those who have served to protect our nation.

I also would like to thank the Veterans service organizations for coming to testify before this Joint Committee today.  Their continued service to our nation’s veterans is truly remarkable.

Thanks to improved field medicine and rapid transport, many more of our servicemembers are returning home today than compared to previous wars.  They are returning with new and complicated injuries, like Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  These injuries require an innovative approach to welcoming home our veterans, and I am happy to see that we are all starting to agree on how to do that.

As a former teacher, I know that education is a powerful tool for empowering people.  I have also heard from a lot of student veterans that the university environment is helpful in reintegrating back into civilian life.  Unfortunately, the rising cost of higher education is making it more difficult for veterans to go to college.

We promised a higher education to our servicemembers when they joined and it is our responsibility to see that they get it when they become veterans.

This is not the case, right now.  When a veteran applies for financial aid using the FAFSA, their G.I. Bill benefits are considered resources, which are then counted against the amount of aid they can receive.  I introduced H.R. 5474, the Student Veteran Financial Aid Fairness Act of 2008, to fix that problem and ensure that the G.I. Bill is used as intended, a benefit for military service, as opposed to a means to reduce the amount of student aid our veterans can receive.  This will be helpful, but we must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of reforming the G.I. Bill.

In addition to assuring an affordable education, we need to make sure adequate medical care is available to our veterans.  Too many veterans are waiting too long for health care. That needs to change.

As we sit here today, we are all aware of the bureaucratic red tape facing disabled veterans in our country.  We have commissioned numerous studies, heard hours of testimony, and devoted billions of dollars toward fixing these problems.  Yet they persist.

As Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, I have had the opportunity to explore issues from sharing of medical records to disability rating disparities.  I am proud of the progress we are making, but I know we can do better.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is a large bureaucracy on the wrong course.  We all know how long it takes to turn such a bureaucracy.  Unfortunately, time is not on our side.

Last December, the Health and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittees of the House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing to look into what we can do to shorten outpatient waiting times.

Resource constraints have forced the VA to delay appointments and exclude thousands from even being eligible for care.  Even worse, the VA is not prepared to handle the large influx of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan War.  We have a responsibility to make sure that every VA Medical Center has the resources it needs to serve all veterans in a timely way.

The Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission presented Congress with a 562-page report on their recommendations for easing the bureaucratic burden and providing benefits in-line with a veteran’s disability.  The Dole-Shalala Commission even recognized a problem within the system, and recommended a complete overhaul. 

The disability claims system is broken, and its failures are hurting veterans.  The disability claims backlog must be fixed before it grows larger. The backlog of more than 400,000 disability claims is only going to increase as hundreds of thousands of veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

We need to get to work and reform this bureaucracy.  As we all know, this is not an easy task.  It will require tough decisions and bipartisan compromise.  I am well aware of the bipartisan tradition of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and its counterpart in the Senate so I know this is possible

Last year, we passed the largest budget increase in the 77-year history of the VA.  We increased the health care budget by $11.8 billion throughout the course of the year, including a 17 percent increase in Prosthetics and Medical Research.  The budget also provided resources to hire 3,100 new claims processors in Fiscal Year 2008.

This is a good start in working together to do the right thing for our Veterans, but I believe we can, and will, do better.

Our nation’s veterans served honorably to protect us and our country.  The least we can do is fight for them when they come home.

I yield back the balance of my time.