Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to appeal to those on both sides of the aisle to hold the executives in the Department of Veterans Affairs accountable.

I think what has been interesting in what we have heard a little bit is really a tale of not the two cities, as Dickens would have it, but a tale of two opinions. And one opinion is the preponderance of evidence we see in our district offices and our Washington offices of problems in the VA; and then on the other side, it is basically a, yes, it is bad, but let's still do business the same way. And I think that is where the American people get frustrated.

I believe by now, everyone is already aware of the lapse in ethical and moral judgment in many of these areas, from Atlanta and South Carolina, others, but also at the Phoenix veterans hospital. You know, the decision there to cook the books that denied care to needy veterans is simply unconscionable. That fact alone should anger every Member of this body, and it certainly angers the 62,000 veterans and their family members in the Ninth District of Georgia.

Sadly, though, it doesn't end there. One has to question our civil service compensation system. The executive at the Phoenix VA facility there received a $170,000 salary plus $9,000 in bonuses. For what? Saving taxpayer money? Mr. Chairman, $9,000 is unbelievable. We rewarded an executive who, in reality, was failing our fellow Americans.

As a member of the United States Air Force Reserve, we instill in our members the universal core value of ``integrity first.'' In the case of the hospitals in the VA system, some put getting accolades over integrity. This angers me, and I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in our government.

The vast majority of Americans and the vast majority of the VA employees work sacrificially and for their fellow Americans--the vast number of them. Except for a select few, those at the Veterans Administration have answered a call to provide care and compensation to those that gave the most of themselves and for our country. To them, I want to pass along a sincere thank-you. It is

disheartening that your reputation could be tarnished by association of the few at the top of your organization.

This scandal is really two problems: One is the outrageous use of secret lists to manage care so a few could thicken their wallets; the other is how we awarded bonuses to senior executives. These individuals wouldn't have received bonuses if we had known the metrics on patient appointments were exaggerated. They apparently didn't think of the consequences of their actions. And I would like to think the issue was isolated to certain areas, but my fear is that this may be a systematic problem, a problem that needs to be corrected immediately.

I want to applaud Chairman Miller's efforts to investigate the potential secret lists at all VA hospitals.

Honorably discharged veterans don't earn the label ``honorable'' by doing what is right some of the time; they earn it by doing what is right all the time. Should we allow the hospital administrators to receive bonuses for doing what is right only some of the time?

We have an opportunity here to demonstrate that the U.S. Congress is good stewards of taxpayer money, and unethical and un-American behavior in our government will not be condoned. On behalf of the veterans that I proudly represent, I support the chairman's investigation, I support Mr. Rothfus' amendment, and I support the underlying appropriations measure here so that these things will not happen again.

In looking at this, it was stated just a few moments ago on the floor, it was insinuated on this floor that this was a political ploy. I don't think it is a political ploy to do what is right. I don't think it is a political ploy to take care of those who took care of us. And if that is where this debate has really taken center on--and I will say for a fact, as I said just a moment ago, that the vast majority of VA employees do a great job with what they are working with, but they are being betrayed at the top, and it is not time to award these kinds of behaviors with taxpayer dollars.

This is what we are here for, not a political ploy, but to do what the Congress is supposed to do, and that is to keep our money going where it is supposed to go in order to provide the benefits that these veterans deserve.

With that, I will support the amendment, I support the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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