'I've Heard A Lot Of Washington Talk' Keith Self Pans VA Officials On Department's Lack Of 'Outputs'

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During a House Veterans' Affairs committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) spoke about the VA's lack of concrete results from policies.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've heard a lot of Washington speak here today. Does

00:08anybody know what those ribbons up on the flags are? Campaign ribbons? They're

00:17battle streamers. Veterans that we are talking about, those represent the

00:23campaigns that our veterans fought in, were wounded in, died in. That's the

00:27veterans we're talking about here. I've heard a lot of Washington talk, Ms. Tan,

00:31in your written testimony, it talks about how critical it is that

00:36veterans and beneficiaries self-report changes. I agree with that, but what I've

00:41heard here is we haven't fixed the problems so that our veterans have the

00:45education and the training to know when they are supposed to do things, and you

00:50heard the chairman say that in his district some people don't have computers,

00:53so we've heard this time and time and time again from my time on this committee

00:57we have, our veterans don't know, and we've made it so complex, Mr. Arante's

01:02testimony, we've made it so complex for our veterans. Those battle streamers up

01:06there represent the veterans that we're talking about here in Washington speak.

01:13Ms. Tan, how many OIG, and two separate answers here, how many OIG

01:19recommendations do you have outstanding, and how many GAO recommendations does the

01:25department have outstanding, OIG and GAO. These are recommendations of people that

01:31are telling the department things to improve your processes. How many do you

01:34have open?

01:35Ms. Tan, sir, I don't have the total number of all of those pending.

01:39I would like to know because we have got to do better. I mean inputs are not outputs. I want to

01:48start hearing outputs about how we fix the problems. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

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