five years ago one of the nation's most carefully guarded secrets the identity of a cia covert agent valerie plame wilson was repeated the revealed by people in the white house to the media this was a serious breach of our national security cia director michael hayden disclosed to this committee that miss wilson worked on some of the most sensitive and highly secretive matters handled by the cia that she faced significant risks to her personal safety and her life and that the disclosure of her identity placed her professional contacts at greater risk and undermined the trust and confidence by which future cia employees and sources would hold the united states as a direct quotes from cia director michael hayden president george w bush's father the first president bush said quote i have nothing but contempt and anger for those who expose the names of our sources they are in my view the most insidious of traitors for the last five years first in the minority and now in the majority i have tried to investigate what really happened and the white house has resisted over style oversight every step of the way special counsel patrick fitzgerald investigation brought new facts to light we learned from his work that both the vice president's top advis scooter libby and the president's top adviser karl rove repeatedly leaked this wilson's identity to the media but there were questions that mr fitzgerald could not answer and one was the role of vice president cheney mr fitzgerald addressed this issue in his closing statement to the jury he said quote there is a cloud over what the vice president did that week he had those meetings he said libby off to judith miller at the st regis hotel we didn't put that cloud there that cloud remains the committee's inquiry has tried to penetrate the cloud surrounding vice president cheney's conduct but today the president has asserted executive privilege and is withholding from the committee and the american people key evidence about the vice president vice president cheney's actions during our investigation we have learned that mr libby told the f b i that it was possible that the vice president instructed him to leak this wilson's identity that would be an extraordinary breach of trust there is a key document that could explain what the vice president knew and what he did the report of the vice president's interview with officials from the f b i working for mr fitzgerald if there is one document that could pierce the cloud hanging over the vice president that is it after a year of fruitless effect attorney general mukasey created a double standard ten years ago his predecessor attorney general janet reno provided this committee the f b i interviews of both president clinton and vice president gore mr mckay she decided that a different rule should apply to republican presidents then to democratic presidents today president bush has taken the extraordinary step  executive privilege over the vice president's interview with criminal investigators the claim of executive privilege is ludicrous we are not seeking  deliver a comment or we are not seeking access to the communications between the vice president and the president we are seeking access to the communications between the vice president and f b i investigators the vice president talked with these f b i investigators voluntarily and he did so knowing that what he said could be disclosed in a criminal trial mr fitzgerald told us that  were no agreements conditions and understanding and quote that limited mr fitzgerald's use of the interview in any way this unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle it protects a person the president is wrong to shield vice president cheney from scrutiny in our system of government even the vice president should be held accountable for his actions the president's actions raise an obvious question why is the president preventing responsible congressional oversight of the vice president if the vice president did nothing wrong what is there to hide a letter that the committee received this morning from the attorney general to the president also raises questions about the president's involvement according to the attorney general the documents being withheld summarized conversations held directly with the president the subjects discussed in the withheld documents include the preparation of the two thousand and three state of the union address the accuracy of the claim that iraq was trying to obtain uranium from the share and the decision to send embassador joe wilson tunisia where the white house misled the nation about iraq's weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the war the vice president said quote we believe he has an effect we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons and quote white house officials then misled the nation about their involvement in leaking mrs wilson's name one top official mr libby was convicted of perjury on that issue yet now that the committee is trying to find out what really happened the president has blocked inquiry by asserting executive privilege over key documents although i have grave reservations about the validity of the president's action i will not ask the committee to act on the contempt resolution at this time all members deserve the opportunity to review the president's claim moreover i want to consult closely with the ranking member davis about the committee's next step the committee will be in responding to this surprising assertion of executive privilege but we will also be determined the president's actions have darkened the cloud over the vice president and left important questions unanswered as the committee considers its next steps i hope the president and the vice president will also consider their congress and the american public are entitled to know what role the president and the vice president played in the despicable outing of miss wilson recognize that mr davis may come this year and we just received the attorney general's le morning we look forward to working with you on this we also have a number of issues regarding this whole episode that we would like to sit down discuss with you to appropriate time so i appreciate your forbearance today and i look forward to work mr davis will certainly talk to you further about this matter i want to recognize any members of the committee if they wish to take on this mr cummings thank you very much mr chairman and i when i think about my and she said something that is in the d n a of every cell in my brain she said one of my biggest fears has always been that another government would out me she said i never imagined that it would be my own government that did it to me jim and i'm still some stunned by the presence of bizarre claim of executive privilege over the vice president's interview with the f b i and i have to know the irony here of this particular administration claiming that an f b i interview with the vice president is covered by executive privilege i shall never forget when president bush was running for office at the end of almost every other speech he would put his hands up put his right hand up and he would swear to the american people that he would not nor his administration would bring shame to our country vice president cheney has repeatedly made the argument that he is not part of the executive branch in two thousand and four the vice president unilaterally exempted himself from personnel reporting requirements by arguing that he is quote not part of the executive branch and the last year he did the same things exempt themselves and his staff from the rules governing the safeguarding of classified information for a time white house officials were trying to explain to everyone that really the vice president was not saying he was part of neither the executive nor the legislative branch what he was really saying is that he was a part of both but then just last month the vice presidency for staff david addington testified before the house of representatives that no in fact what the vice president was saying all along was that he really was what he really meant he is not a part of the executive branch a lot of people believe that this fall what branch argument doesn't pass the laugh test but we got was if you subscribe to this argument i don't see how you can have it both ways you can't say you're not in the executive branch when it suits you like when you are trying to get out our are out of reporting requirements or security regulations and then say you are in the executive branch to take advantage of executive privilege and so who gets to draw the line the vice president alone and what standard is he using it seems silly he's the he's in the executive branch when he wants to hide his role in the valerie plame wilson leak but he's out of the executive branch when he has to report on how many documents a classified last year the american people are no fulls they're going to see through this in an instant if you say you're not in the executive branch you can't come in here and claim executive privilege it's as simple as contempt is there ocean of attorney general no casey and the chair is pull that motion off the table for this committee but i have made a very strong statement why i still think we need to deal with this issue and members have come here to speak about the issue who could we get to and i hope we so they will get to the bills and i don't know members required to speak but if anybody on your side once you come in and defend the president's actions i certainly would be happy to was going to make his speech not get all the cameras in here and have lined up members to speak on this we'd like to move ahead with the legislative business that's what we had agreed to we worked out some intricate language on some of these bills where there was some initial disagreement and if we could move to get these bills have been members who feel they want to make a speech on something that is currently not pending before the business in which we're not going to take action would be free to do that and i would ask that we move ahead on that as proceed to regular order when we consider the contempt issue with regard to president at that meeting was to recognize members on both sides of the aisle who wanted to speak on that issue and i don't think we ought to deny members an opportunity to speak on this issue because i think it's one of the most important investigations we've conducted and i can tell you members were not on notice that we were going to be speechifying are to get our members here and i were going to sit down and we just got a letter this morning from the attorney general and we're not ready to do just and we'll have an appropriate discussion after you and i sat down i may end up siding with you we haven't had it appropriate time to digest it you've obviously spent some time getting your staff wound up on the politics of this and i'd like to move ahead to the to the bills that were on notice to do this morning all members were informed that on the agenda this morning was to vote for contempt of the attorney general of the united states and that is a serious matter and members are concerned about it on this side of the aisle they're concerned about it and if members want to speak on this issue i'm not to deny them that opportunity we concern about the president they're certainly welcome but i'm not going to deny any member democratic or republican ideas opportunity anybody i just like to move ahead to proceeding on the bills for you've obviously lined your people up in the cameras up after telling us you weren't going to the hearing as well well as a mark of anybody no one's required to make any comments and numbers certainly can see the passion by which the ranking member feels that we ought to move on to other issues but i will not deny anybody a chance to make some comments and i thank the chair we came to the committee today to act on a resolution that recommended a contempt of congress citation be issued against the attorney decided otherwise what holds the government of the united states together is that we have to have access to information that we're not government not proceed with all the power of the congress we are better than a co equal branch of government we are first among the first article of the constitution establishes our power we have the war making power and what happened is  opportunity to review this would i be happy oh i understand you my friend i'd be happy to what's a reasonable period of time we've been at work for years now what's a reasonable time for this can go this way is this letter just came out last night or this items of business the second of item of business is h r sixty three eighty eight the government accountability office improvement act without objection that will be considered as  it because of its vital role g a o needs unfettered access to federal agency information and personnel efforts by executive branch officials to withhold information from g a o impeach congress's ability to legislate effectively can keep provision in the bill before us clarifies that congress authorized g a o to pursue civil actions of federal agencies or the white house improperly withhold federal records in litigation arising from g a o is efforts to obtain information about the operations of the cheney energy task force a federal district court held that the controller general lacked standing to enforce right to information this case called walk was wrongly decided and misconstrued congressionally intent regarding the role of the controller general the decision was also an improper invasion into congress's constitutional prerogatives to determine how best to carry out it investigative responsibilities while i am confident that another court considering this issue would reach a different decision passing new legislation to clarify details authority is the most expedient way to restore authority of the controller general for this reason this bill contains express off the resistance of congress to the controller general to pursue litigation if documents are improperly withheld from g a o in effect this provision represents a legislative rep of the court's decision and walker versus cheney other provisions of this important bill give g a o the express authority to interview federal employees when conducting evaluations and investigations and expand authority to administer wrote the bill further enhances g a o authorities by clarifying its right to important records to which it has been denied access these include records at the federal drug administration the centers for medicare and medicaid services and the federal trade commission and finally the bill creates a reporting mechanism so that congress will be more fully informed when federal agencies do not cooperate with these reports will be important tools to improve geos oversight capability jail provides invaluable assistance to congress by helping congress understand how federal agencies are performing their duties this legislation helps ensure the g a o has the authorities it needs to carry out these crucial responsibilities and i urge all members to support the bill thank you mr chairman h r sixty three eighty eight will clarify and augment the authorities of the government accountability office in connection with the executive branch this isn't a republican or democratic issue this is basically institutional issue for congress sections two and four dealing with g a o access to executive agency records are the most significant provisions section two of the bill adds a new provision to current general authority to obtain executive agency records to allow the controller general to decide which executive agency documents are needed to discharge his duties thereby strengthening his hand when seeking information from agency current law requires only that agencies provide information about the duties powers activities organizations and financial transactions of the agency the new provision specifically state the controller general is authorized to obtain the agency records he needs to do his job conjunction with current authority will authorize g a o to pursue a civil action to obtain executive branch records section two also clarify the current access authority which is now a bit murky because of the decision in walker b cheney where the u s district court for the district of columbia held for certain executive branch records i think th on medicare part d the food and drug administration of the federal trade commission will be protected from on warranted disclosure jail as a next record with respect to maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive and classified information and the amendment ensures that record will continue and i urge members to support this amendment any discussion on the amendment if not let's proceed to a vote all those in favor of the davis waxman amendment will say i suppose no the eyes have it the memmott agree i have some comments on your meant that they please without objection that will be the order are we ready for the any further amendments if not let's proceed to a vote to report out sixty three eighty eight as amended all those in favor of that motion will say i oppose no the ayes have it the motions agree to and sixty three eighty eight is reported out with the usual instruction the next bill is h r sixty five hundred the thrift savings plan enhanced been active two thousand and eight the federal employee thrift savings plan is the premier retirement savings program in this nation that has been run by the federal retirement thrift investment board for over twenty years with very low cost keeping the needs of program participants as its number one priority the plan has been a model for both the private sector and other government while t s p has been a model planet it was created over twenty years ago and it has been only infrequently updated the bill before us today reflects bipartisan agreement on ways to strengthen and modernize t s p first at the suggestion of the federal retirement thrift investment board the bill provides for automatic enrollment in t s p for new federal employees it would also allow the board to designate a fun other than the government securities as a default investment fund current practice and investment management theory suggests that investment in an age appropriate lifestyle fund may be a better option the bill would also provide for the include of a roth contribution option for t s p under current practice employee contributions to the t are made before taxes and employees may pay taxes on their retirement fund when they withdraw them with a roth option employee contributions are made after taxes are deducted and the employee does not pay taxes on the fund upon withdrawal this option could be attractive to federal employees at both the lower and the upper end of the wage scale finally the bill also gives the board the authority to add additional self directed investment options if it determines that such options would be in the interests of the participants and after consultation with affected employer representatives the cost of these options would also have to be borne solely by those employees using them the t s p currently offers a choice of five index funds tied to government securities bonds stocks small capital stocks and international stocks and lifecycle funds which are a combination of these funds these are the right investment vehicles for the vast majority of federal employees the self directed option recognizes that for some employees additional options such as a refund i would be appropriate this is a solid bipartisan bill which will enhance the investment options of federal employees and i urge members to support it mr davis thank you mr chairman in these uncertain economic times the thrift savings plan is more important than ever i'm pleased to see this legislation before the committee today as i believe it will allow federal employees to take greater advantage of market shifts and changes if they decide to do so under the current t s p system there is some flexibility for participants to choose outcomes they seek investor cordingley but the current system makes no allowance for more sophisticated investors to more finely tailor their choices to meet certain goals investors today are much more in intentional about their investing much more intentional at aligning their portfolios with their personal convictions to do well by doing good by investing for example only in funds which consider environmental concerns or funds which invest in companies headed by women or individuals or particular ethnicity they may choose to invest in a fund which has a good record on religious beliefs labor relations or any other noncommercial personal belief other investors want the opportunity to take advantage of growth in particular areas of the economy high tech funds or real estate in recent years the interest in real estate investment trusts his federal employees and watch their neighbor's pro recent morning donald trump says you shouldn't be buying real estate says this is a good opportunity and a good time to buy real estate federal employees should have that same option this legislation will allow that kind of flexibility but it also maintains  if they go into the f fund they run the risk of bonds which can go up and down stock funds also can go up and down but i think most people understand that over the long term these investments especially in a diversified investment can produce savings that it gives people if they choose to stay in the t s p program the opportunity  on that three percent because in the uncertain market today even f d i c only insurance up to one hundred thousand people are losing their savings and i have officially called the bill forward let me do that without objection the bill will be considered as read and open to amendment any point the bill is officially before us and i would like to recognize members who want to make a statement or a question or offer an amendment i want to thank chairman waxman for his efforts to improve the thrift savings plan and to expand the investment options available to plan participants  plan participants are happy with the performance of their investments as they consider their t s p plan as a cornerstone of their retirement a testament to the thrift investment board stewardship of the program i've long been a supporter of socially responsible investment as more effective than just a matter of investing and i'll continue to believe that if we are to build a more peaceful and equitable society that benefits all citizens any investments we make must reflect those values according to the social investment forum the popularity of socially responsible investment options has increased dramatically since one thousand nine hundred five currently nine percent of total invested dollars in every social responsible for invent is invest in a socially responsible fund moreover  many socially responsible investment index funds perform better than other index funds h r sixty five hundred has a mechanism for t s p participants to consider socially response investing i look forward to working with the chairman  federal work force postal service in the district of columbia has held several hearings on including diversity into all aspects of the federal government held hearings on diversity within the senior executive service in both the executive and legislative branches and hearings to examine ways to improve minority participation in the management plan and the debate over minorities participating in the t s p vestment revealed that there are minority firms with talent in long term financial management by increasing reporting requirements for companies working with the federal government we hope to improve the diversity within jordi financial firms and so i thank you mr chairman for your support and i think you've taken another look at the thrift savings plan you've done in your subcommittee on this whole issue this amendment would require simply that the board of the thrift savings plan report on its contracting or sub contracting with minority businesses i think this information would be useful for congress and i hope members will support it i think the fact that they have to give us a report should remind them that we expect them to be looking for every opportunity to contract  amendment but in listening to miss watson comment it seems to me that we ought to have at least as much concern about the success or  failure of the group in terms of making money for the federal employees as we do about the composition of their employees in terms of gender and race i would think should be more concerned about whether they're going to make money than what they're made of in terms of that and so i'm wondering if if mr davis would entertain a friendly amendment to this saying in question report relative to how well the fund is doing and how well it's been managed i think this would simply add another dimension to it and of course  the kinds of investments and i think it has a lot to do with the fact that they are after all only entity in their dealing with the savings of federal workers  the legislation if not the vote now comes on reporting h r sixty five hundred as amended all those in favor say aye aye aye oppose no the ayes have it and the motions agreed to the bill is reported out with the usual instructions the next item of business is h r sixty one thirteen to require federal agency phone contact numbers and information collections without objection this charge the bill from the subcommittee on government management organization and procurement and further without objection the bill will be considered as read and open to a member at any point this bill was introduced by representative nancy boyda on may twenty one two thousand eight it requires each agency to include agencies contact telephone number on agency forms the bill is aimed at making it easier for people to fill out government paperwork a person filling out a government form should be able to go to the agency that requires the form to get questions answered this bill says that agencies must provide information right on the form about how to contact the agency to get those answers the national federation of independent businesses asked its members in a survey last year where the congress should mandate that federally required paperwork include the contact information of the agency requesting the information eighty five percent of respondents said yes and i think we should be mindful of that overwhelming opinion for what seems to me a commonsense proposal at the appropriate time an amendment will be offered that i believe will further strengthen strengthen the bill it's a straightforward good government built by colleagues  chairman i think we all know the frustrating feeling of trying to get answers and not being able to do so you know sometimes that's what's life like in the minority but that should never be the case when someone's trying to comply with government information requests we're happy without objection amendment will be considered as read and the gentleman is recognized to explain the amendment thank you very much mr chairman the bill as introduced requires each agency to provide a contact telephone number on  collection under this amendment each agency would also have to provide its website address this a mimic clarifies that a person must be able to use a contact information to reach a person who is responsible for answering questions about the phone we do not want to overburden agencies with having to constantly change each and every time a contact name or number changes but we all know how frustrating it can be to call a one eight hundred number and not be able to reach someone who can answer your question therefore this amendment also provides that if an agency lists general contact information a great one i would like to offer one additional suggestion and i don't have language written right now for it but we did something similar to this when i was in state government and what we required was that there had to be a way to reach a human being when the phone because in some you can get into voicemail and really never ever be able to reach a human being  and i'm wondering if we could make a slight variation on this so that when the agent has a phone number that you call there has to be a mechanism like dialing zero to get an answer to get an operator because again many times if you'll dial these numbers you will find you really never get somebody who answers the phone and when the phone is answered how you can actually get to a human being i'm not i don't think it would be real complicated to do that but it would improve services to constituents we did that in north carolina on legislation very similar to this and i'm wondering i don't want to stop the amendment but look at that and see if something could be representative fox's comment we might want to see how well this is implemented by having a report can you give me the reasoning behind striking  agree that if we can refer to a periodic report on the efficacy of could we have some language attached to your amendment that would require any further discussion if not let's proceed to a vote on the town's amendment all those in favor the amendments say i oppose no the ayes have it the members agreed to are there any other amendments to the bill if not the motion now comes on reporting h r sixty one thirteen as amended with the usual instructions all those in favor say aye aye oppose no the eyes have it and the motions agree to next bills h r six  seven three to require electronic paystubs for federal employees i'd like to ask unanimous unanimous consent to discharge the bill from the subcommittee on government management organization and procurement and to be considered as read and open to members at any point without it without objection that will be the order of h r six zero seven three deuce by represented virginia fox would require the office of personnel management to develop electronic pay stubs for employees paid by direct deposit since nine hundred ninety five the laws required federal employee pay to be disbursed by direct deposit in most circumstances in this bill takes the next step toward making the entire payroll processor electronic using direct deposit saves the cost of processing and mailing paper checks however many agencies still print and mail pay stubs to employees paid by direct deposit limiting the administrative savings from direct deposit this building courage agencies to eliminate paper entirely from their payroll function leading to additional administrative call we consulted with the office of personnel management and the office of management and budget about this bill and they have no objection this is a very helpful bill it will save money and i want to commend the author for presenting a very constructive proposal that i hope all members will support  thank you mr chairman for bringing up this bill today i also want to commend her leadership on this issue for introducing this legislation under current law in most cases federal employee pay must be dispersed by electronic funds transfer rule act of two thousand and eight without objection it will be considered as read and open to amendment at any point this bill was introduced by norton it's another discreet but important effort to allow the district of columbia to handle its own affairs this bill would repeal current law requiring the secretary of education to be involved in the selection and determination of the public public charter school board membership as reported in the news the current mayor and the d c council have a number of initiatives regarding district schools this bill does not address those initiatives it merely gives the mayor an opportunity to have a clear chain of command on needed oversight that's a straight forward home rule bill and i urge my colleagues to support it thank you mr chairman and this legislation will repeal the involvement of the secretary of education in the selection and determination of the d c public charter school board membership and objective which i support i believe bringing up this bill today gives us the opportunity to discuss another important aspect regarding d c schools something that's not pending today but i would be remiss if i didn't take the opportunity to talk about mayor  public school reform initiative it may or may not be a success but one thing is certain it's going to take years before it can be deemed a success or a failure the d c opportunity scholarship program needs to be given the same chance to succeed mayor fenty has followed his predecessor mayor williams endorsing funding for this year for the d c school choice better known as a federally funded school voucher program the program's been endorsed by a former d c mayor marion barry and the washington post as well and that program which is not the subject of this bill but children from low income families should not be forced to return to the failing schools they want to attended this year one hundred kids in fifty eight different schools are participating in that program the average household income for those receiving scholarships is twenty one thousand one hundred dollars for a family of four the vast majority of the vast majority of the kids participating in the program come from school designated in need of improvement federal funds for the program are currently authorized through f y two thousand eight i was pleased to hear the appropriators have agreed to fund the program for the next fiscal year although i will not be here next year i hope that congress will reauthorize it at that time we should ensure that these opportunities scholarships are allowed to the all important choice i n the education of their children continues as the washington post so aptly put it it would be wrong for congress to abort a program whose potential is still being studied and realized just on the current bill there were three legs to it that this congress went forward with for committee the subcommittee on the federal workforce postal service in the district of columbia yesterday afternoon h r three twenty two introduced by the generated from the district of columbia congresswoman eleanor holmes norton is nation the district is home to over fifty chartered public schools which are responsible for educating nearly twenty thousand students the expansion in the charter school program in significant task force that task force headed by former member from wisconsin brought up virtually everybody in the district who had an interest in education and the result was this e committee ought to know is that the district of columbia has created out of whole cloth a model for public schools in the united funding and its scarcity and for the notion of where accountability should live the american people at the rate of  eighty per cent insist that public money go to public schools is back puts parents in a quandary my public school is no darn good then it seems to me that you've got to look to publicly other publicly accountable alternatives and most jurisdictions including most jurisdictions in this very region have not done that but the district of columbia has done something that should give us the greatest respect for democracy because what the congress created this board after consultation with the district people of the district of columbia blocked to the charter schools so the people of the district of columbia have voted with their feet a third of the school children go to charter schools who want to talk alternatives why don't you go to your own district to talk alternative we've got one that the people have embraced and it is publicly accountable if it doesn't do well then of course it gets abolished and we've abolished charter schools the the record is bad public schools and gone to this one district also uses out of district placement so some people travel cross country town because we rate the schools and so they know which ones are best as a  district against its will the people of the district of columbia in the same huge numbers that the people of the country oppose private school vouchers there have been  anyone would think about the district and this bill is because of the jurisdiction of the congress now the fact although this bill was  a wonderfully home rule way the district was in sorry shape the committee came up with this notion that the payer should appoint from a list provided by an official who couldn't be further from the district of columbia the secretary of education if this were done in these times i would call it demeaning because that's what it w be as a matter of fact we've gotten so much cooperation bipartisan cooperation that part of it there was nothing i could do anything about and the rest of the bill is vindicated itself the very least that the district of columbia restructuring their schools the district of columbia when he decided on what can only be called a radical restructuring of our schools had two boards one that had been created by the district and the other that had been created by the federal government the ones that the federal government had created through the charter bill has done so well in its accountability in selecting schools in the diversity of these schools people don't even live in the district of columbia how demeaning is that somebody who is dealing with your children and doesn't even live in your jurisdiction is not a member of that sol when they began power who we were to a mayor who will take the power over the school board we were classes take accountability for the school board the last thing we want to do is a but part of your system where a third of their children comments about by delegate norton norton and i want to respond to them a little bit and then ask her some questions if i might proponent of charter schools and i have read a little bit at the end of the day we have jurisdiction to do whatever we want to do but from everything i can see from my vantage point he has acted boldly and bravely and so making a lot of controversial decisions that elected officials just were incapable of doing and this is just another tool to allow the city to try to tackle this very very difficult problem ms norton i have differences of opinion over how to best do some of the but i think at this point we need to give this ray and he and the mayor the appropriate flexibility they have really stepped up to this plate and i would add this problem has buried a lot of other very good people who have tried to tackle it because we have second guess them and not giving them the direct authority they need so i'm encouraged by what i see at this point there's a long way to go we need to work with them and be allies and there may be a time here maybe six months from now two years where we'll second guess and and can come in on top but you know from this point i think they are doing more to reform education just in the last year than i've seen the previous  to be traditionally local issues i don't think we can forget that a part of this deal is about self governance and returning to the district functions that were previously handled by the federal government at a time when the district government was in extreme financial distress and had to be overseen by federal control response and other members of the committee times have changed and the district has rebounded quite well since the late one nine hundred ninety s which is why the bill we are considering today is so important h r sixty three twenty two would in my mind render unto caesar what  is and there is no reason why the secretary of education or the congress need to continue being so heavily involved specifically in the districts public charter school for these reasons that i oppose fox amendment which would essentially reverse the clock on recent progress that this committee has achieved and i would urge that we pass the bill to the elected board the superintendent and the mayor and i have always supported home role and i hope we can get there one day but i appreciate the blank check to the district of columbia what is in effect now had to be approved by the congress we are not having anything to substitute for that we're simply saying do what you want to do it seems to me that the appropriate thing would be to bring the proposal that the city is going to have back to the congress for approval if not then i i think violates home rule and for that reason i would urge my colleagues to vote against it anybody want to speak further on the and then if not let's proceed to a vote on the fox amendment all those in favor the fox amendment will say i oppose no nos have it and the amendment is not agreed to the vote now comes unless or further amendments on reporting are sixty three twenty two with the usual instructions all those in favor say  opposed no the ayes have it and the motions agree to the next bill h r eight hundred sixty five authorized programs for local government collection of delinquent  authorizes a pilot program for local governments to collect delinquent taxes from phones that otherwise would have been returned to those dead or as a federal tax refund this is a bipartisan bill davis chairman thank  you articulated probably better than i could let me just say on the again addresses monies owed to localities by individuals would allow localities participating pilot program to go after tax cheats by intercepting their federal tax returns i ask  my remarks be put into the record at this point without objection that will be the order in fact will have unanimous consent for all members who wish to insert statements of the record to do so the bill is before us and open to amendment mr davis has an amendment without objection will be considered as read and gentlemen recognize again i ask to put my remarks in the record without objection over the order all those in favor of the davis amendment to the bill creating a commission to honor and celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of ronald reagan ronald reagan as we all know as our fortieth president of the united states serve dealing with all the different concerns kept on coming out of left field or right field and field and everywhere else but we now have a bill that i think is one that we all can support with pride involved in it and involve themselves in this legislation without objection and then that would be agreed to now come to my remarks go in the record at this point without without objection that will be the order all those in favor of h r fifty two thirty five as amended will say i suppose no the eyes have it and the motion is agreed to the bills reported out with the usual instructions we have six resolutions and ten and nine postal naming measures without objection they'll be considered and block as read and open to any amendment at any point the bills are on read three sixty four representative introduced by robert barbara lee i recognize the significance of national caribbean american heritage month reza levin twenty eight introduced by representative david davis which supports the goals and ideals of national carriage driving month reza level forty three introduced by representative todd russell platt which supports the goals and ideals of the apple crunch and the nation's domestic apple industry  twelve o two introduced by representative tom davis which support the goals and ideals of a national guard youth challenge day twelve sixty two introduced by representative darrell issa which expresses the sense of the house of representatives of the secretary of commerce should of national gear up day on july twenty two two thousand eight hundred thirty two introduced by representative william jefferson which designates a postal facility at harvey louisiana after harry lead time as i may consume i will i will be brief mr chairman house resolution twelve sixty two expressing the sense of the congress and the house a sense the house of representatives that the secretary of commerce should use all reasonable measures to ensure that every person is counted in the two thousand and ten census was thought out for a reason notwithstanding the constitution that is clear and  s there were people on both sides of the aisle for various reasons often reasons of their own elections have chosen to say well perhaps we should estimate well there are people on the other side of the aisle quite frankly who say we shouldn't count people unless their status is clear with all due respect the constitution and the framers intended on both sides all persons residing to be counted and i think that's important and for two hundred  thirty two years we have done that and so for congress to come together on a bipartisan basis as i'm sure we will on this bill let's both sides before the count put those things which might be popular back home to rail on and recognize that the constitution is clear and unambiguous that in fact we should ensure that this be properly done as it has been four hundred ten times before and i thank the coming up resolution today i wear the pink in green my sorority is here in washington d c celebrating its one hundred one and we strongly strongly back a full count in this decade to come and i want to thank you mr eissa for recognizing that and i wanted to recognize the support of three hundred thousand members twenty five thousand are here in washington d c and you will see on thursday as we march from dorothy height headquarters across to the eastern western step the capitol so thank you so much i just want to give a plug for our hundredth anniversary after kappa alpha sorority cooperated recognize themselves to support this resolution i thank mr bringing us together i do want to point out that this is not an anti sampling resolution it simply says that the census should be accurate and that may or may not involve sampling it it's up to the people in charge to make that determination i support the resolution and would call for the previous question on all of the and blogger resolutions postal namings all those in favor of reporting six resolutions and one postal namings to the house with the usual instructions will say i oppose no the ayes have it and the motions agreed to our last proposal is a seven thirty two concerning national estate planning awareness week this was introduced by representative mike thompson supports the designation of national estate planning awareness week i have a technical amendment without objection the amendment th bill will be considered is read the text of the amendment will be considered as read without objection to technical amendment will be considered as adopted and there will recognize anybody who insists on talking but would discourage that  statements of members will be inserted in the record on this and all other proposals that have been before us and a vote now comes on reporting seven thirty two with the usual instructions all those in favor say  today going to examine the reasons for the significant delivering the retroactive pay award to disabled retired veterans and assess the government's management of the program without objection the chair of the ranking minority member them the president just last month awarded the press central medal of freedom in part on his assessment that the recipient demonstrated the love and care that should be shown to our veterans but do the leaders believe it has caring for our veterans become an empty gesture is a hollow sentiment this subcommittee began an investigation into the cause of delay in delivering a benefit to severely disabled veterans who injuries and diseases are related to their combat and military service experience congress mandated in two thousand and three and two thousand and four that such veterans were eligible to receive their full military retired and v a disability pay where previously they retired by the value of their disability pay the new benefit was going to make a real difference in the lives of those veterans with awards ranging from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars but the payments barely get out the door my staff sifted through a total of over sixteen thousand pages of documents produced separately by the defense finance and accounting service and lockheed martin they interviewed veterans whose eligibility for retroactive pay was denied or delayed the findings are shocking the department of defense waited two years after nachman of the law to hold its first formal meeting on implementing the new benefit two years it took a total of five and a half years to review the claims of just one hundred  thirty three thousand and fifty seven veterans who became eligible when congress changed the law up to eight thousand seven hundred and sixty three disabled veterans suspended its own rigorous independent verification of calculation made by law and instead outsourced quality assurance in doing effectively bypassed regulations on statistical sampling in federal quality control procedures applied a week or standard to quality assurance than the standard mandated by the fast also federal workers to supplement l work force this is highly unusual since there is a prohibition on assigning federal workers to tasks that the government has contracted out to a private company well these measures had the effect of clearing the backlog of cases waiting for review it's at the expense of accuracy up to sixty thousand and fifty one payments to veterans were issued after a suspension of quality control measures went into effect on march first two thousand and eight at least twenty eight thousand two hundred eighty three veterans were denied retroactive terminations made wholly without quality assurance review these denials were made by technicians who received all of six weeks training the subcommittee doesn't know how many payments were made an error but we do know that as a clue either because d fight with the bureaucracy if they disagree with what lockheed in the government told them these findings are why this hearing is really about something bigger than the execution of a specific policy called v a retro do we care enough about our veterans to get it right the first time do we care enough about our veterans to verify the accuracy of payments we send to them do we care enough about our veterans to check the work of a lackey technician who with six weeks training has made a decision that a disabled war veteran is not eligible for retroactive pay our investigation has unfortunately found and did not care enough in this case to do that their policies those families who waited and waited and waited and waited hoping for some financial help which they needed so sorely because they're already at a disadvantage because of the disability that they had that were service connected i want to say on behalf of them that this congress is going to relentlessly pursue this matter we're going to do everything we can not only to see that these payments are brought up to speed but we're going to do everything we can to hold to an accounting those who saw the system fall apart people who served this country put their lives on the line waited and waited and waited and didn't get the quite compelling i want you to think of what it would be like if you were one of those eighty seven hundred veterans who are waiting by the mailbox as their lives have their way  that never came a response from a government that they were willing to put their lives on a line to protect was never forthcoming hearings in the previous congress be placed in the record at this time guard and reserves deserve the very best support from the congress and throughout the government but they're not getting it when tom davis was chairman of this committee regular an in depth oversight was was conducted  non routine problems servicemen and women were facing this included the persistent problems at walter reed the persistent problems military pay which continued till today the inability of the d o d to get its business processes and financial management systems properly updated the oversight on these issues continued when the subcommittee on government management headed by todd platts examined the modernization failures of financial management system government wide over the years we have asked the g a o for help in assessing the cause the causes of these repeated failures they have a once once twice thrice and many more times said that the financial management practices of the us government cost us billions of dollars and have no have come nowhere close to best practices in the past present and show no sign of doing so in the future we know the root cause of these problems is the lack of best practices the lack of adhering to concepts which have been long proven in the private sector to this and i do applaud private sector companies whether they be flawless or not in at least exposing government system the opportunity to use best practices today in our hearing we're going to deal with an example of both the best in the worst example of that we're going to see a contractor who is accused of perhaps profiting  by the the very errors that the government had within its system we're going to hear and i think accurately that multiple government databases were not properly assessed prior to the commencement of this contract for what their real costs were going to be we're going to see more than fifteen if you will redefining moments in the contract added cost and in many cases inevitably cost us time we are going to see some good news in this case and the chairman referred to it in his opening comment and that was that assets both public and private were put to bear quickly to try to reduce the time for veterans to receive what congress had entitle them to the shortcuts taken will be criticized here today and they should be we need to plan better we need to implement better and certainly we need to insist that contractors either present the contractors obey the law and if they need or want exclusions from existing and well well thought out laws such as contractors not using  government employees that in fact a proper exemption be granted in a timely fashion having said all of that the chairman and i both take a keen interest in this subject both of us have immediate family members who are disabled veterans both of us see every day how difficult it is projected for veterans of previous wars to get by and i think i can speak on behalf of both of us we can only estimate the hundreds of thousands of veterans exposed to injuries particularly from i e d s in this war who will over a period of time develop debilitating injuries not immediately apparent so if we don't get it right today and we continue to not get it right it's very clear that in the future we will be faced with much larger problem having said that i'd like to applaud everyone involved  taking from multiple databases paper documents some of them from microfiche and some of them just poorly scanned finding a way to turn them into at least somewhat data i don't think that we can sell short the fact that twenty years ago what was done in the in the case of bringing these records into a digital age would have been impossible not withstanding that implementation of technology is expected by our contractors and expected by the american people so today as we focus on a series of what will be characterized i'm sure i want to focus on the positive i also very much appreciate that we will be dealing with ways to love those bells we will be dealing with ways to get to the best practices that clearly we don't have today veterans disability compensation can currently be enacted legislation was good for our veterans because previously retired pay was cut by the amount of disability compensation a veteran receives from the v a according to the defense finance and accounting services as a result of new entitlements over two hundred and fifteen thousand veterans became eligible for pay due to changes in their disability status d f a s created the veterans retro program in september of two thousand and six to disperse retroactive payments to eligible veterans in order to process claims d f s contracted lockheed martin to review and adjudicate cases according to the committee lockheed was to create a software solution for calculating benefits but that was never done they also missed every deadline for completion of the v a retro program deadline for completing the retroactive payments backlog was scheduled for november two thousand and seven but not completed according to the f a s and till the end of june of two thousand and eight so mr chairman we have to run and vote at the time but i certainly look forward to hearing from today's fan and i hope they can explain the in detail as to why it was difficult to complete the retroactive payments in a timely manner and thank you very much he was able to persist and prevail last month he received notification from d f s that he was in fact eligible for a fifteen thousand dollars retroactive pay award for the record i want the subcommittee to know that mr lewis wanted to testify here today neuropathy hearing loss and post traumatic stress disorder to numerous combat experience and injuries including concussions and broken vertebrae from rocket attacks and exposure to agent orange so want to start by introducing our panel mister director of defense finance and accounting service in his role he oversees the day to day accounting and finance activities and department of leading more than twelve thousand thousand eligible military retirees more than two hundred ninety eight million monthly for their combat related special compensation for concur retirement a disability payment during the project eligible retirees continue to receive their a reliable and repeatable process enabling us to adjudicate incoming claims within thirty days or underestimated the difficulty of processing many of these claims in november two thousand and seven when we missed our deadline for completing all original claims we reviewed our overall approach and revised our plan to complete the remaining original claims april thirtieth two thousand and eight in the new and returning claims by june thirtieth two thousand and eight  eight we realize that we would be hard pressed to meet our revised deadlines in the under secretary comptroller committed to triple the contractor workforce dedicated to this project pursuant to our commitment by the end of april two thousand quadrupled the contractor stassen from fifty one to more than two hundred personnel we also deployed a set of automated tools categorize the claims and in the case of more easily calculated claims allowed processing of those claims more than thirteen thousand original claims however despite quadrupling the workforce streamlining the quality additional automation by april two thousand and eight we saw the contractor was not meeting production  we also instituted the use of a standard set of approved data sources for the calculation of each client to minimize calculation errors but i reconciliations and ensure consistency in review invalidation to quality control contractor rely realigned quality control personnel to the production floor to produce quality they also establish a production dashboard to foster performance accountability at every level in the organization where we were not able to complete the original claims by the april thirtieth two thousand and eight deadline we were able to adjudicate all of the original and the new and returning claims by july first two thousand and eight we also institutionalize a process that enables us to process claims within testimony to the record today i will describe what the lockheed martin team has done in conjunction with our customer to accomplish retro projects important goal of paying eligible military retirees any retroactive compensation they are due lockheed martin began working with two thousand and three following our acquisition of the federal government business computer services we are proud to support the department of defense in its important mission of paying our nation's defense contract with before and complete payroll and customer service functions for two and a half million customers this program demands accurate timely personalized business process services for a very special customer base we have successfully executed on this program since we took it over and take pride in supporting those who have defended our nation's freedoms in two thousand and six we began working with the fast on the be retro project as a task order under a larger contract when we began the project there was a backlog of over one hundred thirty three thousand cases awaiting adjudication a police report that all these cases have been adjudicated as of june two thousand and eight the initial phase of the a retro project required lockheed martin to develop  seventy faster term in the data quality would not support our plans for automation together with our customer recognize that most cases would have to process manually and we began in hiring initiative with the goal of completing the original hundred thirty three thousand cases by the end april two thousand and eight and the new and returning backlog of over eighty six thousand cases by one july we were successful in completing all original thousand and eight in the new in return turning backlog on june twenty sixth the d is one of the largest and most complex organizations in the federal government oversight of its programs and functions is essential to the success of our troops regardless of the mission in which they are engaged the magnitude and complexity of the department of defense requires nothing less than a full time effort we are in a time of war and our work not only saves tax payer dollars but also and much more importantly the lives of u service members my testimony today addresses the d o d experience with o m b circular seventy six competitions and more specifically work relating to the competition that privatized retired and a new and pay functions this effort was initiated in response to a request from you mr chairman our review found that although the competition process was completed and the ten year contract was awarded a calculation error of thirty one point eight million dollars was identified for the in house estimate overhead cost of thirty three point seven million dollars for the in house estimate based on the o m b director twelve percent cost factor were not reduced after the functions were awarded to the contractor and the contract had inadequate standards to measure performance in fact seven out of ten were inadequate in response to the about a report contracted with the center for naval analysis at c n n to examine the choices available to address the errors identified in our previous audit report c n a estimated that the current contract was forty two million dollars less expensive than the most efficient organization in response to a second request from you mr chairman my office completed an additional audit in june of two thousand and four we reviewed the forty two million dollars cost savings associated with retaining the existing contract and did not agree that the contract was forty two million dollars less expensive than the we believed the amount of system work to be performed in the remaining years was unknown and as such the reduction in the level of war should have been applied to all portions of the in house cost estimate in order to fairly compare the contractor proposal and the offer thank you mr chairman for the opportunity to appear before this committee today to address our work relating to o m b circular a seventy six as i am not the subject matter expert on the issue i have brought with me henry klein connect mr kline connect is a program program director in the acquisition and contract management directorate and other than the c n a review henry also performed all of the audit that we discussed in my statement here today and is here to answer any specific questions we regarding the previous work of the department of defense  i ask that my prepared statement be submitted for the record and i thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today and we would be happy to answer any questions you may have sir i thank the  thank you mr chairman your committee staff asked me to review all the available statistical evidence justifying the transfer of quality control functions for retired disability  payments from the government that is from the c d a to an outside contractor lockheed martin i did review all that all the available evidence and the short answer to my review is there's not a shred statistical evidence that this transfer was justified let me briefly summarize why feel that way first of all the only evidence the only statistical evidence produced was a small tabulation by defect of a set of c g i audit that were a very small sample eight hundred forty one payments were r and my first comment on that is looking at the internal correspondence d f s over the period of this contract it's obvious that there's far more error data than those eight hundred forty one samples but that's all that's been presented i believe that between the government and the contractor a lot of data that would be very useful for determining whether quality control was accomplished and properly transferred has been suppressed or whether held from the committee looking at the actual date that it was presented to see whether it justifies the th it was supposed to show that errors were much smaller than the two point five percent total dollar error mandated by g a o under the improper payments information act the sample in fact totally fails to show that first of all for for simple reason as the payments that were sampled the eight hundred forty one payment or the wrong payments the payments that are supposed to be sampled under the g a o procedure are supposed to be under twenty five hundred dollars payments all payments over twenty five hundred dollars are supposed to be one hundred percent champ and the sample that was produced by the moxley team is in fact an over twenty five hundred dollars sample as far as i can tell secondly the samples are not random and i think as anybody understand who's ever looked at political opinion polls if you get to choose what's in the sample you can get any answer you want to that's exactly the case with this sample was not randomly drawn and in fact it consists of relatively the easiest cases to do so obviously the errors in that sample are understated  the the tabulation the moxley team tabulation showed a little over one percent dollar error as their estimate that's a totally wrong calculation that calculation is not based on dollar errors as a  sheet it's based on a guess at what the dollar error might be because d f s never insisted that she ga give them the dollar aerosol they just all the defense basically turned over to them was that a payment was right inside that the sample fails to meet the g a o standard because these are over twenty five hundred dollar payments and the g a o standard is they have to be one hundred percent reviewed and one hundred percent accurate or corrected so one percent error rate in the dollars means that the shampoo was unacceptable but there's a much larger issue in this whole thing and simple statistical validity of these eight hundred forty one payments the larger issue is that no one not the f a s not lockheed martin has ever reviewed audited checked the denials of payment to veterans in other words the zero payment decisions are very much part of the sample very much a part of the mandated error checking process by g a o have simply been left out by my calculations  that means about forty three thousand veterans have been given payment to change and that no one knows whether they're right or wrong furthermore in that forty three thousand is exactly where the largest financial errors are likely to be  under and in many of these cases where veterans have been told they're owed nothing they may in fact be owed you know tens of thousands of dollars so the very largest errors may be buried in this sample of zero payments that but even larger than the statistical question of whether this you know this invalidates the statistical sampling is the fact that this is this is the single area in which the greatest injustice has been done to veterans the veterans who've been denied payment by my estimate forty three thousand of them have been denied that in the absence of anybody knowing whether this was right or wrong and it completely invalidates all the rest of the argument about the statistics and the audit of the air at large or small and so on and this is this is really an ethical and a moral issue not a statistical issue at all there's one more major issue beyond the ethical failures not reviewing denials of payment and the terrible you know small sample that was presented to prove that errors were acceptable and that's a simple question of sound financial management imagine if you're the c e o of a company and you suspect that your payroll department is either making horrible arithmetic errors or maybe embezzling the money you would do under those circumstances assign a quality control function to that payroll department of course not get in effect that's exactly what the government has done it is assigned the quality control function to the very very process that's in question and that we know which times is forty three thousand cases has has failed to address the most important question whether whether veteran is owed money or not i thank the gentleman your time's expired and when we're going to get back into some of these questions and i can guarantee that  retro pay we have not done any work in that area this is all kind of after the fact where you know we did all the initial looked at the initial decision to compatibly source your request back in two thousand and one we looked at all these issues and we we wrote our i believe the don't believe the number of underpayment is seven and the number of overpayments is forty to forty nine in total i believe is the number i'm going to go to mr took about seven minutes for the first round here within your area of control is this one percent of the problem two percent of the problem and let me just clarify it when we look at the amount of data that is still paper or micro page we look at the amount of mistakes being made in other areas of finance how do you compare the problem that you had and most of it is in the past tense with in fact some of the other major areas and i'll just give you a couple of quick ones for example the army logistics modernization program the l m p that's a billion dollar program has been delayed for i guess and the estimate to complete it now is eight hundred million of all cost overrun or the that which i believe that nets net system which obviously is a very important potential program two hundred fifty can that although we do know that there are other legislative proposals that have taken effect that will cause more work to come our way five thousand of these claims a month are coming in and we we know we can keep up with that that workload on a ongoing basis the committee has pointed out an issue with the no pay do calculations i would comment that in one sense the process to calculate whether pay was due or not was reviewed by didn't work as well as we intended for to the specific example of command sergeant major lewis where his initial claim was denied and then eventually was determined he was owed money actually came out of one of the very first attempts to use an automated solution to calculate his case and it was wrong when we found out it was wrong we went back we made changes to the process to get it right it came out and showed he was owed money and we are now looking at all of those no pay claims to ensure that proper steps were taken i'm particularly interested in part of the lessons learned here the laws governing this requirement is retroactive pay were passed in two thousand to two thousand but the subsidiary that acquired got the contract in two thousand and six so when i'm sitting here in two thousand and eight and you're giving me a mission accomplished may be a little more expensive than it would have been if it had been better planned or we've known in the beginning what we know at the end how do we get past the two years and two years in the future because it appears as though the the runway that we didn't have available that would have allowed this to be maybe done more efficiently was behind lockheed at the time that they got the contract at that time would be used up how do we account for that fine and how do we prevent it from being lost in the future you're correct that director no one recognized believe that there was a requirement to look at how payments had been in whether there was a retroactive miss required that didn't actually start until late zero four early zero five timeframe then it took from february of zero five when the initial formal meeting started between it took from them to determine how to even do it what the data sources would be and then it took some time to create a contract modification with lockheed martin to actually start doing the work and set up a process around how that would work so we were late determining or identifying the requirement and then it took some time to get going with it and then of course we wanted to much more rapidly  it is that something that we should be looking at because obviously it's delayed obviously it's not delivering the benefits and it's not on the scope today but something tells me it will be a much more expensive project can you comment on the i'm sorry i'm not familiar with that one more question very quickly if you had to do over again and you were back two thousand and four when you began to realize that there was a retroactive question would it have been better to have issued a small perhaps no bid contract to a contractor who could do who could scope the project who could put the assets to bear in a much shorter period of time to figure out what databases where and when particular contractor who may have already been in those databases and then using that gone out with a better design contractor knowing what you know now i'm not saying that you could have done it with what you knew then but now isn't that potentially a best of practice that could be looked at rather than a year plus of federal looking and then ultimately not having all the facts you needed at the beginning of  contract well actually you identify what i believe is a best practice and that is to bring in experts who can assess the situation identify a game plan to deal with it for example had we known of other systems that we don't that was going to occur in the middle of this operation we may have done things a bit different in terms of timing of when certain things would be completed so a small pilot to look at what how to do it the  quite possibly we could have written a totally different task of how to go do the work because we would have had more information to support what would be required what durations would be required and had a better feel for how many claims would actually be process someone in payroll where we don't outsource the work is responsible for computing payments to individuals the process and the owner of that process is responsible for the quality of what they produce the p realize that many of the documents you look at go back that far and i want to get in perspective because i want to see where we've been and i want to know where we can go two different ranks and i served actually with two different set of bars on the same commander at the time and only general wes clark could could laugh about it years later that i'd worked for him as a captain then as a lieutenant as a captain and that was to be expected because he didn't argue with the orders no matter how bizarre they were but i do want us to look at it in that that sense of where we were let me ask sort of the other part of the question and if you feel comfortable  perhaps other experts were perhaps a follow up for the record we have countless amounts of non digital data sitting out there and all kinds of other areas would this committee be well advised to hold hearings and in fact to potentially create a program that says we can save money in the long run if we launch a professionalized program to get it all digitized and i realize we've had blueprints of this ship but not this ship and then lots of other piecemeal is that something that from a government oversight standpoint piecemealing by  by department of agriculture is costing us more then in fact if we do it all at once and let me give you the alternate am i being a little bit foolish because even though it's costing us this much will it cost us that much less ten years from now if we don't need it till ten years from now because that's that's my conundrum here today is this is a project that wasn't on the scale of things that expensive but it was expensive and it was piecemeal do we continue piecemealing the project in hopes that as the years go on it gets less expensive or should we have a government wide plan if you will the manhattan project of conversion of  this committee and this chairman ranking member best set about holding the hearings making the case that might lead to that funding that is not personally available to do this right quite interpret the information to understand what you're looking at if we lived in a world where people spoke the same language shared the same information tremendous amount of resources in title most come all the time and one of our challenges as an organization is to quickly implement those new entitlements if we don't have the tools to do it with then you end up with what we have here which is kind of than it is right now the cabinet agencies if you look across government and multiply that times you know twelve or thirteen times what the effect of those organizations is i think you would build a tremendously viable business  n let me ask you about no determination meaning obviously that someone isn't due who determined that twenty eight thousand two hundred eighty three disabled veterans were not to any money in the retroactive project the lockheed martin individuals who are responsible for computing are due to take information run it through the procedures that were stab eventually rose to command levels of authority army attributes his multiple disabilities including diabetes type two acute peripheral neuropathy and hearing loss to numerous combat injuries including concussions that was readily accessible in a database environment this would be no different than normal operations are we actually millions of people every month with a proportionally much smaller workforce  proportionally much smaller cost let me ask one more question and this may be outside your expertise but i feel i need to ask it the brother of a hundred percent disabled veteran i watched the process that he and many of my comrades of years past have gone through that unfortunately veterans most commonly go through a series not one but a respects from my perspective is duplicative and could be done much more streamlined i do believe that what the department's are trying to do under various lines of action as a result of what happened at walter reed  what the departments are already starting to do is a positive thing because more of that be done i believe just like the sharing of information among the departments would be very beneficial and we're working those kinds of things with v a right now well since you are talking in the tense we are working we are doing this i'm going to maybe not pose a question but as a request to the chair it seems that today's hearing is putting us in a position where what we've uncovered is that outer skin of the onion and if we don't peel back the current database the post walter reed and see whether or not the next generation coming home from iraq and afghanistan or even non combat tours in which they may be injured if we don't make sure today that this is being done quickly i suspect that those who come down the road ten years from now will be having a similar conversation about how still isn't talking well sincerely i don't want to step on the committee other committees but i think when it comes to the portion which this committee has of primary jurisdiction of of these systems and whether they talk to each other that we take the time to have another hearing in which we bring back some of the experts that could tell us how they're doing today and perhaps picking up on the questions here today also look backwards at these expensive databases because it seems like both finding out what dollars would it would take to take care of the sins of the past and getting to the real crux of our we world class today or are we just working and may be a long way from those two questions can only be asked i think if a committee looking at it in that way does it so i want to i want to close by thanking you for holding this hearing it has caused us i think to look at the bigger picture fifteen million or so dollars that we were talking about here  areas part of the defense of our country and they can they can they can make a missile hit a missile but for some reason they can't connect a veteran with the benefits  small point i'd like to make sure i understand twenty eight thousand plus do we hear today that they were erroneous or just that there were twenty eight thousand denials and perhaps twenty eight thousand out of twenty eight thousand five hundred are in fact extent he was unfortunately one of the first people through the new revised automated process which kicked out the wrong answer for him when we found out the problem when he came back and said i don't believe your answer we went back and looked however we will certainly make sure the individuals are made whole and we will go back and look at the process to make that initial determination and ensure that is corrected secondly on an ongoing basis live in your district or near your district because of how long it takes to get to if they can't buy some transportation available to them if they can't get the veterans hospital in fact they can't live where they  so there is a myriad of issues and you're absolutely right our disabled veterans are owed every accommodation and particularly and one of the reasons i made a point here today that i'm not upset about the money that was because of the speed of the contractor because ultimately we were letting down the veteran every day past two thousand and four that we didn't do it i am upset about any inaccuracy and particularly additional flaws and people who  contract for legislative changes so again that c n a report that showed the under run really didn't overrun it looks like that that probably it's it's going to be a wash a zero number so again we can get the exact numbers if we if we look at to square one or you can bid on a contract and you can actually get the contract underbidding saying it's not going to take that much work for what is arguably a labor intensive endeavor then you then you get the contract and suddenly how does the back because you don't have enough people to do the work and we found that when we outsourced things like this again one of them and i spoke to a couple the large defense contractors you lose a lot of your flexibility and if it's a you know again on some of this thing with a retro pay with all these issues