News & Opinion

Last year, Social Security announced it’s Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) on Oct. 19 but Congress didn’t agree to legislation authorizing a similar increase for VA recipients until Nov. 2. On March 5, Representative Jon Runyan of New Jersey introduced H.R.4142, the American Heroes COLA Act to make VA’s cost-of-living adjustments automatic like Social Security and military retired pay. This bill has been referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and its passage would eliminate the period of uncertainty between the announcement of the Social Security COLA and action by Congress to raise VA’s rates. Read more »

They say the devil is in the details. For those mired in Orlando's stalled VA Hospital construction project, thousands of details still need to be hammered out. And the clock is ticking. One of those devilish details — an unassuming 6-inch steel stud — is but one example of what has put the long-awaited medical facility more than 15 months behind schedule. Read more »

-- Not to long ago, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), Chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, wrote an editorial for Military.com’s ‘The Passdown‘ in which he explained his concern that the reality of sequestration – the congressionally mandated cuts that will automatically occur later this year due to the Joint Select Committee’s failure to find $1.2 trillion dollars in deficit reductions – is about hit home for veterans. Read more »

Programs aimed at helping Iraq and Afghanistan veterans find jobs may be paying off, as the federal government reported a dramatic drop in the February unemployment rate for people who separated from the service since 2001. Read more »

Recently, the White House honored 200 of the 1.2 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with a special meal and high words of praise. In a moving speech, President Obama spoke of sacrifice and struggle, reminding his audience that new veterans would not be abandoned like the Vietnam generation. “That's a mistake that we must never repeat,” he stated. Meanwhile, a series of policy actions contradict these statements, exposing government intentions to unnecessarily sacrifice the military community at the altar of budget cuts. Read more »

Officials at Arlington National Cemetery will use an Army-designed geospatial mapping system to manage cemetery operations, the executive director of the Army National Cemeteries Program said today. Read more »

A House subcommittee is considering two bills that would expand job protections for veterans — and advocacy groups say both changes are long overdue. HR 3524, would prevent employers from discriminating against disabled veterans who miss work because they are receiving medical treatment for service-connected disabilities. They could receive up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave a year without fear of losing their job, under the bill pending before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s economic opportunity panel. Read more »

After reporting that it had found 102 more misplaced headstones or markers and 21 graves missing markers at its cemeteries, the Veterans Affairs Department told lawmakers Thursday that it's trying to prevent future errors by requiring contractors to keep headstones at gravesites undergoing renovations and by conducting daily inspections. Read more »

The Department of Veterans Affairs has found more than 100 unmarked or mismarked graves at two more national cemeteries, adding to a mounting toll of problems at military burial grounds across the country. Read more »

The heads of the Pentagon and Veterans Affairs said Monday they want to improve the process by which active servicemembers become veterans but also acknowledged it would take a lot of work. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki convened the second of what they said would be regular meetings about how their departments can better serve troops leaving the military, including those filing claims for service-connected disabilities. Read more »