America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, America was horrified 2 years ago as the scandal at the VA unfolded. We heard about veterans dying while they were waiting for care. Meanwhile, we discovered that VA employees manipulated appointment wait lists to hide the fact that the VA couldn't provide the care our veterans needed in a timely fashion.

The denial of earned care is always tragic, but it is inexcusable when the denial is driven by bureaucratic tampering and falsifications. Cooking the books was one bureaucratic offense, but not holding accountable those responsible is an additional bureaucratic failure, and one that continues to haunt our system.

These weren't just a few scattered incidents either. The VA inspector general investigated 73 VA facilities across the country and found problems in 51 of them, ranging from rule violations to outright fraud. These reports demonstrate that inappropriate scheduling practices were systematic at the VA.

This map shows how widespread the wait-list rule violations and manipulations have been. The inspector general's office found out how our veterans were treated when they called up looking for care. The information the VA gave was manipulated to make it seem as though the VA was doing much better than it was. We literally know that veterans died while waiting for care. That is shameful, and we owe it to those who served this Nation to serve them. They earned this by defending us and our freedoms.

Unfortunately, one of those 51 cases was the VA medical center in my home State of New Hampshire.

A New Hampshire newspaper summarizes the inspector general's report as follows:

Staff at the Manchester VA Medical Center manipulated appointment dates and refused to schedule referrals beyond 14 days in some speciality departments, all to make it appear patients were being seen quickly.

One report also shows that top officials at the Manchester VA discouraged the use of electronic waiting lists.

Another shows extremely long waits at the facility's Pain Clinic, where one patient waited an average of seven to eight months for injection treatments.

The reports show a near obsession with keeping numbers down when it comes to the length of time that veterans had to wait for appointments, which is one of the ways bonuses for hospital officials were determined.

Bonuses were determined by how you performed on the scheduling and whether you were actually meeting the needs of our veterans on time. Yet we know they were manipulating wait lists across the country to show that they were, in fact, serving our veterans when they were not.

Last week I met with the current Manchester VA medical center director to discuss the findings of the inspector general's report. Even though it didn't occur under her leadership, these findings are serious and must be dealt with appropriately. While I was encouraged to hear of the steps the director has taken to address the scheduling misconduct, I will be closely following the medical center's practices and performance.

We cannot let this happen again. Part of not letting it happen again is what brings me to the floor today. I will make sure we aren't incentivizing misconduct and allowing wrongdoers to get away with it, whether it is the wait-list manipulations or misconduct.

Unfortunately, the wait-list scandal isn't the only scandal at the VA. There is a common theme with all these scandals: Those committing misconduct are getting bonuses--yes, bonuses. Those involved in wrongdoing are getting checks paid by the American taxpayer. That is unacceptable, and that is why I introduced bipartisan legislation to improve accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs by requiring the VA Secretary to claw back bonuses paid to VA employees who were involved in serious misconduct or felonies. It would also require the VA to retain a copy of any reprimand or admonishment given to an employee by the Department which would then be in that employee's permanent record. Keeping that information in someone's employment record seems like common sense, but we have to pass this bill in order to do that. Amazingly, the Secretary of the VA doesn't currently have the authority to claw back bonuses even if, as with the wait list, the perpetrator's misconduct led to a bigger bonus check. That is unacceptable. We cannot reward those who commit fraud and misconduct by doling out taxpayer dollars.

A recent report noted that in 2014 the VA paid out $140 million in bonuses. Nearly half of the VA's employees got bonuses. More importantly, we know that individuals who were implicated in an array of scandals also received bonuses. For example, the director of the Phoenix VA hospital who was fired for her misconduct got a $9,000 bonus. The VA senior managers who improperly leveraged their positions to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in relocation funds to move to new facilities, along with a bump in pay--even though they were committing misrepresentations and fraud--got bonuses. A VA employee who recently pleaded the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee got a bonus. Executives overseeing the $1 billion-over-budget VA medical center construction project in Colorado got bonuses. A doctor implicated in overprescribing opioids at the Tomah VA facility called ``Candy Land,'' where veterans were harmed--bonus.

We can't let these bonuses keep going to wrongdoers. It will just continue the erosion of trust of our veterans, who have done so much to defend this Nation and our freedom. That is why we need to pass this bill. The VA Secretary must be active in pursuing the disciplinary actions against VA employees guilty of misconduct so they aren't getting bonuses and taking away resources that could go to help our veterans. Without my legislation, the VA Secretary does not have the authority right now to go after a bonus, even if the bonus is given to a wrongdoer, to claw that money back.

This bill passed out of committee by a voice vote. The records retention provisions in this bill passed out of the House of Representatives by voice vote. Let's put this authority into law so that those who break the law don't get bonuses. That is why I am standing on the floor today asking for unanimous consent to pass this legislation.

240, S. 627. I further ask that the Ayotte and Brown amendments be agreed to; the committee-reported substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; the title amendment be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Ms. AYOTTE. No, I do not.

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Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I certainly thank the Senator from Maryland. I agree, and I believe there are many hard-working Federal employees. The reason that I have been fighting for this bill in particular is, No. 1, to make sure that those who commit misconduct are held accountable. No. 2, I actually want to make sure that we aren't sending the wrong message to the people who are working hard and doing their jobs. When they see someone else who has committed misconduct by literally manipulating wait lists get a bonus, that actually demoralizes the good, hard-working employees who are doing their jobs and serving veterans.

So this is about making sure that the people who actually do a good job get recognized. But when you give a bonus to someone who has committed misconduct, you not only obviously undermine our system-- thinking about the veterans who have served our Nation with so much courage and done so much for us--not only do we corrode their trust, but I think we corrode the trust of the workforce that is doing really great work every day, and I want to thank those who are doing the good work on our behalf. I have had a chance to meet many of them.

I want to address the point of the Senator from Maryland about giving managers authority. I wish to point out that the problem we have here is that this is rampant--absolutely rampant. If we look at what happened with the director of the Phoenix VA who lost her job--fired for misconduct--where literally wait lists were manipulated and veterans died, she got a $9,000 bonus. So who are we going to leave discretion to here? Many of the managers, I know, need to manage the facilities, which is important. But when it comes to the bonus issue, we literally would be putting, for example in the Phoenix situation, the individual who gets fired for overseeing all of this in charge of whether and how long other people's bonuses are clawed back. I would also say that this has been rampant, unfortunately, about management, and not just of the director of the Phoenix VA but the other examples I gave, including the VA senior managers who improperly leveraged their positions to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in relocation funds. So, in other words, they were misappropriating taxpayer dollars. They got bonuses too. They are managers.

We have executives overseeing the huge cost overrun in the Colorado VA who got bonuses. We have many examples. If we put this at the discretion of how long this is going to go in place instead of putting a logical time period in place, which my bill does, then we are going to keep perpetuating the same situation where the discretion makes it so it doesn't happen. That worries me, because, unfortunately, we have a pattern here that needs to be addressed.

Second, I would just say that, as we look at even the ability to retain records, most employers do have standard recordkeeping in terms of if you receive a reprimand or an admonishment and how long that is retained. So if we just leave that completely loosey-goosey discretion among managers, where we have already established some of them have been part of this misconduct, then I fear there really will be no accountability and these provisions will not have the teeth in them that they should.

Let me just say that this bill that we have been working on, that did pass out of committee, is something that I have been working on and negotiating for months, working and taking people's concerns into account. It does ensure that, before any employee is subject to having the bonus clawed back, they do have the opportunity for due process. So that is built into this to challenge the underlying claims made against them. But if we put this all into a discretionary basis, then we are just going to be in the same situation that we are right now and not have the teeth that we need in this commonsense measure.

I talked to some of my constituents about this issue, and they can't believe that we actually have to pass a law to say that if you got a bonus and you committed misconduct--in fact, one of the reasons you got the bonus is because of the misconduct, because you manipulated the wait list--yes, you can give that money back, and you shouldn't be receiving a bonus. It is kind of shocking that this isn't just common sense. But right now the VA Secretary does not have this authority.

Our veterans deserve better. This is plain common sense. I am disappointed that the modification that was sought on the floor would weaken this commonsense bill. I am going to continue to fight for more accountability in our VA. But let's have some common sense in all of this. We shouldn't be rewarding our employees who are committing misconduct for the very conduct that they are committing and that unfortunately is harming our veterans who have done so much for this Nation.

I am the granddaughter of a World War II veteran. My husband is an Iraq veteran. I have had the privilege in my job of meeting so many of our veterans, both current Active-Duty military and those who have served in conflicts going back to World War II. There is no greater example of patriotism and what makes our country great than our veterans. Really, if we think about what has happened in our VA and how shameful it is, this is something that we need to make sure we get right once and for all for those who have defended this Nation and who really show us what it means to be an American.

So I am going to continue to fight for such a commonsense piece of legislation, but I hope my colleagues will join me in this so that we can make sure that the VA performs its mission, which is to give our veterans the best care they can receive and that they certainly have earned defending our great Nation.

Thank you, Mr. President.
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