OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

VA Accountability Act of 2015

Floor Speech

Date: July 29, 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Veterans

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Ms. TITUS. Mr. Chairman, as a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1994, the so-called VA Accountability Act of 2015.

We all agree on the importance of accountability for those who care for our Nation's heroes, but this is the wrong way to go about it. We are indeed throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

My colleagues have outlined a number of reasons to oppose this legislation, including questionable constitutionality, the elimination of longstanding and important due process procedures for employees, and the damage it would do to whistleblower protections; but I would like to focus on the big picture, on the impact this will have on VA employees, many of whom are veterans themselves, and on our efforts to recruit the best employees possible to serve our veterans.

This legislation takes VA employees, from janitors who clean the facilities and guards who protect the hospital, to the nurses caring for our Nation's heroes and the doctors providing critical care for our veterans, and moves them into second-class status.

If H.R. 1994 passes, we will create a two-tiered Federal system, with VA employees less respected, less rewarded, and less protected than others. The VA already struggles to attract the best and brightest to serve our Nation's heroes. If this legislation passes, we will make it even harder to recruit and retain the most qualified and best trained workforce at the VA.

I know this because, in Las Vegas, we face challenges to fully staff our brand-new state-of-the-art hospital, and if the bill passes, we will lose an important recruitment tool, and our veterans will be the ones who are hurt.

Let's not fool ourselves here. This is just another piece of the Republican agenda to demonize public employees and privatize government services. Today, it is the VA. Tomorrow, it will be another agency that they don't like--who knows, the EPA, the TSA, the FAA, the USDA.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation. Don't ``Scott Walkerize'' the Federal Government.

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