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85–863 2014

EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ON VA 

BENEFITS AND SERVICES TO VETERANS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2013 

Serial No. 113–38 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 

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ii 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

DAN BENISHEK, Michigan 

TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas 

MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

PAUL COOK, California 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine, Ranking 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

MARK TAKANO, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

RAUL RUIZ, California 

GLORIA NEGRETE MCLEOD, California 

ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

JON TOWERS, Staff Director 

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records 

of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs are also published in electronic form. The printed 

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to 

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting 

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process 

is further refined. 

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C O N T E N T S 

October 9, 2013 

Page 

Effect Of Government Shutdown On VA Benefits And Services To Veterans ... 1 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Hon. Jeff Miller, Chairman, .................................................................................... 1 

Prepared Statement of Chairman Miller ........................................................ 40 

Hon. Michael H. Michaud, Ranking Minority Member ........................................ 3 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Michaud ............................................................ 41 

Hon. Corrine Brown, U.S. House of Representatives, Prepared Statement 

only ........................................................................................................................ 41

WITNESSES 

Hon. Eric K. Shinseki, Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ............ 4 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Shinseki ............................................................ 42 

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD 

Paralyzed Veterans of America .............................................................................. 46 

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America ........................................................... 48 

AMVETS ................................................................................................................... 49 

Veterans of Foreign Wars ....................................................................................... 51 

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EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ON VA 

BENEFITS AND SERVICES TO VETERANS 

Wednesday, October 9, 2013 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:29 a.m., in Room 

334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Miller [Chairman of 

the Committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Miller, Lamborn, Bilirakis, Roe, Flores, 

Denham, Runyan, Benishek, Huelskamp, Amodei, Coffman, Cook, 

Walorski, Michaud, Brown, Takano, Brownley, Titus, Kirkpatrick, 

Ruiz, Negrete McLeod, Kuster, O’Rourke, and Walz. 

Also Present: Representative McNerney. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MILLER 

The CHAIRMAN. This hearing will come to order. Before we begin, 

I would like to ask unanimous consent from the Committee that 

the gentleman from California and former Member of this Committee, Mr. McNerney, be allowed to join us at the dais today and 

participate in today’s proceedings. Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome to the Committee. I appreciate, sincerely 

appreciate you being here on relatively short notice. And we are 

here today to understand how veterans are being impacted by the 

lapse in appropriations that has the government currently in a 

shutdown mode. There is plenty of blame that can be shared as to 

why we are in this position, but that is not why I called the hearing. I really called the hearing so that we can get the best possible 

information available out to the veteran community. 

Veterans want to know whether their disability checks and GI 

bill benefits will be paid in November and thereafter. They want 

to know if their disability claims will be decided or further delayed. 

Families want to know if their loved ones will receive a timely burial at VA national cemeteries. And many of VA’s employees themselves want to know whether they will be serving veterans on the 

job or whether they are going to be furloughed. 

I understand that answers to some of these questions are entirely dependent on how long this shutdown lasts. And although I 

want to be sure that most of us agree that we want the shutdown 

over quickly, it is our responsibility to ensure that the public, especially veterans, understand what the current state of play is. 

First of all, Mr. Secretary, I want to say, that in the last couple 

of weeks, getting good information about VA’s contingency plans 

and the effect of a lapse in appropriations, and its effect on veterans has been very difficult to get out of your office. For example, 

the original field guide that VA put out regarding the shutdown 

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impact at first spoke of no effect, no effect on payments to veterans, 

or processing of their benefits. But in a later version, VA stated 

that a prolonged shutdown would impact both, but didn’t provide 

any details as to how it would be impacted. 

Secondly, the Veterans Health Administration is not shut down 

at all because it has received a full year’s appropriation for 2014 

back in March. So hospitals, clinics, and vet centers should all be 

open for business. Yet the President made a statement the day before the shutdown saying that veterans will find their support centers unstaffed and implied that counseling services for veterans 

with PTS would be affected. 

Third, this Committee has consistently been told VBA’s mandatory overtime effort towards the backlog would actually end on September 30. Yet days into the shutdown, we are now informed that 

the shutdown prevented VA’s planned continued payment of overtime. 

Fourth, although a shutdown should have a relatively uniform effect across all regional offices, as suggested by your own field 

guide, my staff met with several representatives from VSOs last 

week, who relayed that their members are hearing mixed messages 

out of different regional offices. And I think it goes without saying 

none of this is ideal. 

Some degree of confusion is to be expected, and we understand 

that. But VA employees should be worrying about VA’s mission of 

service to veterans, not planning for furloughs or managing an 

agency on spare change remaining from last year. However, what 

can never be expected is anything less than the full truth, as best 

as it is known at the time. This grave situation does not need to 

be assisted by misleading statements from anybody, statements designed to aid a political argument by any political party, regardless 

of which one we may belong to. 

It is my hope that we can uphold the best traditions of this Committee and rise above all of that today. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate 

your willingness to join us in this effort. Since this hearing was 

called last Friday, we have had a little bit more clarity on some of 

the issues we have been asking your staff about for the last 10 

days. But I thought the public should hear some of the same information. 

Now, one last point before I conclude. Last July, we held a hearing on a bill that the Ranking Member and I introduced that proposed to advance fund the entire VA discretionary budget. The administration declined to take a position on the bill, saying, instead, 

it needed to conduct a review first. It is obvious that no review is 

necessary given where we are today. 

Mr. Secretary, I sincerely hope that you are making that case 

with the administration. And I will follow up with you on that 

point during questioning. 

And I now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Michaud, for his 

opening statement. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MILLER APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX]

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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL H. MICHAUD 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having 

this hearing today. 

And I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for coming. 

Before we begin exploring how the government shutdown is affecting veterans and the VA, I want to acknowledge the very real 

consequences the lapse in appropriation has had on VA employees. 

I know that VA employees do not work solely for a paycheck. They 

work because they believe in helping veterans. A lot of them are 

veterans. And they have done a phenomenal job. And now it is time 

for Congress to do its job. 

We can do this in two ways. Number one, either the Senate take 

up the MILCON/VA appropriation bill that was passed by the 

House 4 months ago, or the House can take up a clean CR passed 

by the Senate. I don’t care which one that we choose, as long as 

we get on with the reopening of government and that we fully fund 

VA. 

The VA contingency plan and field guide provide us with a rough 

idea of the consequences of a government shutdown. Last week, we 

saw the immediate shutdown, what it had on some of the VA offices, such as the Inspector General. Yesterday, we saw some VBA 

and IT accounts run dry and thousands of VA employees furloughed. We know that the mandatory funds to pay compensation 

and pension benefits are scheduled to run out in little over 2 

weeks. 

We also know that furloughs and suspensions of programs in 

other agencies also affect veterans. Of the roughly 2.1 million Federal employees, more than 600,000 are veterans. Many of them are 

already, or expect to be, furloughed. Also, as programs and services 

at other agencies are disrupted, it affects VA’s ability to receive the 

necessary information and support to deliver those services for our 

veterans. 

We know we will hear bad news today from you, Mr. Secretary. 

Important VA operations have, or will be, suspended. Some veterans will not get what they are expecting, what they deserve, and 

most importantly, what they have earned. This may be a difficult 

conversation, but one that we must have openly, frankly, and honestly. 

But amidst the bad news, there is some good news. With VA’s 

medical accounts under advance appropriation, the Veterans 

Health Administration is largely unaffected by lapse in the fiscal 

year 2014 appropriation. All medical facilities are open, as you 

heard from the Chairman, and operating under normal status. This 

will continue, regardless how long the current government is shut 

down. 

It is clear now that in the midst of the shutdown, that getting 

a vote on H.R. 813, as amended, the Putting the Veterans Funding 

First Act, is necessary and a critical step in ensuring veterans’ benefits and services are not put at risk when there is a lapse in appropriations. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for signing on the letter with 

me to the Speaker asking that H.R. 813, as amended, be scheduled 

for floor action. I encourage all Members of the Committee to sign 

onto that letter and to send a message that veterans should not, 

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and cannot, and will not be disadvantaged by party politics in the 

future, regardless of which party is in control. 

Mr. Secretary, I look forward to your testimony and the questions to follow. 

Mr. Chairman, once again I want to thank you very much for 

having this very important and timely hearing today. With that, I 

yield back the balance of my time. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL H. MICHAUD APPEARS IN THE APPENDIX]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Michaud. 

Thank you to all the Members for your attendance today. As you 

might imagine, this is a critical time within our government, and 

certainly for our veterans out there. And that is why I asked the 

Secretary, and I am so pleased that on very short notice, he was 

able to come in and give us some indication of where we are now 

within the VA, and where we will be going in the future, depending 

on how long this shutdown does in fact continue. 

I want to welcome to the table our first and only witness of this 

morning, the Honorable Eric Shinseki, Secretary for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Your complete written statement, Mr. Secretary, will be entered 

into the record, and you are recognized now for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ERIC K. SHINSEKI 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Great. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member 

Michaud, Members of the Committee, thank you for entering my 

written statement. 

Let me, Mr. Chairman, just recognize that in the room here, we 

have partners for all of us from our veterans service organizations. 

I would tell you they have been quite directly helpful to me over 

the past 41⁄2 years in trying to help us understand how to be better 

at our responsibilities of caring for veterans, but also 

servicemembers and families and survivors that we are responsible 

for. 

Mr. Chairman, you called this hearing to examine the effect of 

the government shutdown on VA benefits and services to veterans. 

And while my written testimony describes many effects on VA due 

to the ongoing lapse in appropriations, let me just say, unequivocally, that all the effects that I described, and I am going to describe of the shutdown are negative. It is an impediment to VA’s 

ability to deliver services and benefits that veterans have earned 

through their service. 

VA continues to invest significant resources and time and planning for this unique, infrequent, and avoidable situation. The ongoing shutdown presents myriad legal and programmatic challenges. 

The last time a shutdown occurred, in 1996, as I am told, our Nation was enjoying a sustained period of relative peace. That is not 

true today. Today, we are in the 13th year of the war in Afghanistan, providing care and benefits to veterans of that war, and the 

war in Iraq as well. Members of this latest generation of veterans 

are enrolling in VA at a higher rate than ever before. They, along 

with the veterans of every preceding generation, will be harmed if 

the shutdown continues. 

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5 

In brief, in the last 6 months, through 30 September, the Veterans Benefits Administration, VBA, reduced the backlog of compensation claims, something we have all been working on, and 

prodding, and encouraging them to do better. Well, they have 

begun that delivery, 193,000 claims in the backlog reduced in the 

last 190 days, roughly 190 days, a 31.5 percent increase in about 

a little over 6 months. 

Since the shutdown began on 1 October, the backlog has stalled, 

and in fact has increased by about 2,000 claims. VBA has already 

furloughed more than 7,800 of its employees, half of whom are veterans. The shutdown directly threatens VA’s ability to eliminate 

the backlog. We have lost ground we fought hard to take. Roughly 

1,400 veterans a day are now not receiving decisions on their disability compensation claims due to the end of overtime. If the shutdown does not end in the coming weeks, VA will not be able to assure of delivery of 1 November checks to more than 5.18 million 

beneficiaries, and that accounts for about $6.25 billion in payments 

that people are expecting in compensation, and pensions, and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, DIC, fiduciary, educational, vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits, including veterans who are 100 percent disabled, surviving spouses, and 

eligible children orphaned by the death of their military or veteran 

parent. Tuition and stipends for over 500,000 veteran 

servicemembers and eligible family members in education programs will also stop. 

These are some of the major issues veterans face if the shutdown 

continues. My written testimony includes details of other negative 

impacts, to our IT initiatives, to our National Cemetery Administration, whose employees lay to honored rest those who have 

served this Nation, to VA staff offices, and to VA employees themselves, especially those who are veterans. 

While some have suggested a series of mini-continuing resolutions, or mini-CRs, if you will, as an approach to meeting our fiscal 

year 2014 budgetary responsibilities for funding the government, 

that is not a solution for veterans or for our Nation. The budget 

request submitted by President Obama nearly 6 months ago is the 

result of an extensive, cooperative, synchronized effort across all 

departments and agencies to produce a budget request that coherently balanced priorities and risks. 

Picking and choosing parts of government to fund would ignore 

two key drumbeats that I have tried to deliver over the past 41⁄2

years. The first is that very little of what we work on in VA originates in VA. Much of that originates in another department. And 

then, second, VA’s care for veterans, and by that I mean health 

care, education, employment, insurance, housing for both the homeowner and the homeless, does not occur without significant coordination with DoD, with Housing and Urban Development, HHS, Social Security, Treasury, Education, Labor, the IRS, Small Business 

Administration. And frankly, it is this collaboration amongst and 

across the government that allows us to be effective. 

And I would add to that, we have a fourth mission, I think as 

the Chairman recalls. Besides our three administrations, we have 

a fourth mission in the event of emergency, national disaster, humanitarian requirements, that I must make available our capabiliVACREP180 with DISTILLER

6 

ties where they are needed. So we work with FEMA and DHS. 

Homeland Security is also part of our day-to-day responsibilities. 

These are not insignificant connections for this department. Without them, we are less effective in serving veterans, our 

servicemembers, their families, and our survivors. 

And so, these are the facts that I present, Mr. Chairman. At a 

critical time for veterans, everyone at VA, as you said, should be 

focusing on how best to accomplish their missions. And so I ask the 

Committee, and the rest of Congress, to help us by resolving this 

fiscal impasse now, so that VA and our Federal partners, on whom 

we have to rely to do our work, can get back to work full-time, fulfilling President Lincoln’s call to care for those who have borne the 

battle. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF ERIC K. SHINSEKI APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. 

You and I both know that regular order is not the mode that we 

are in today. But regular order in fact requires a piecemeal approach of 12 appropriation bills. One hundred and twenty-six-plus 

days ago this House, on a bipartisan basis, passed a VA/military 

construction bill that fully funded, not just partially funded on a 

short-term basis, which is what folks are asking for now, but fully 

funded VA. Yet that bill languishes over in the Senate. 

To my colleagues who may not recall, because it has been so long 

that we sent that bill over to the Senate, there is very little difference, maybe a quarter of a percent difference between the two 

bills on VA spending. It could very easily be brought forward, and 

this would be off the table. 

And so my question is and statement is, in years past, House and 

Senate, regardless of parties, and the White House have always 

come together and tried to find a way to prioritize how money 

would be spent, who would be at the top of the list as we started 

to shut the government down and run out of money. And today, we 

don’t have that. Even back in the shutdown of 1995, there was a 

prioritization, and DoD and veterans were taken off the table, 

which they are not right now. 

So my question, Mr. Secretary is, don’t you think VA benefits 

certainly should get the same priority or prioritization today as it 

has in other shutdown situations? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I missed the last piece of your question, Mr. 

Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Just basically, in years past, we have in fact 

prioritized spending needs. DoD and VA has always been basically 

taken off the table. And my question is, what is different this time? 

And don’t you think veterans’ benefits in fact should be prioritized 

at a higher level than others within our Federal Government? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, I would just tell you this department has benefited from the leadership of the President and 

the leadership and support of the Congress. If you look at what has 

transpired over the last 4 years to our budgets, I think we can all 

be proud of what we have done to take care of veterans. And I will 

always tell you that that is a top priority with me. 

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But I do understand there is a budget request presented to the 

Congress, there is a process that you referred to that requires the 

passage of a budget. And within that, the individual departments 

are then provided guidance on what their budgets will be. I am not 

sure where the Congress is in that process, but I would ask the 

Congress to provide us a budget so that not only this department, 

but our partners in government, on whom we rely to do our mission well, can get on with business. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think it is important to discuss the differences 

between a budget and an appropriation, because it has been 

conflated in the national media that because a budget hasn’t been 

passed, we can’t appropriate money. In fact, we have done it for a 

number of years now because we haven’t been able to come to an 

agreement on a budget. 

We did pass in this House over 126 days ago now, by a large bipartisan measure, and I would hope you would know, or have some 

type of an idea of why the Senate is holding that so tight, has chosen not to move that legislation forward. We passed four different 

full appropriation bills. And I am hoping that maybe you can help 

me understand why the Senate continues not to act on the full, not 

a piecemeal, partial bill, but a whole funding bill. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your confidence 

in my ability to sort through this for the Congress. I would just 

claim to be just an average guy trying to do a job here. 

But here is what I am facing: I didn’t know there was going to 

be a shutdown; I had no idea that this was intended to happen; 

And so the month of September is for me the end of a fiscal year. 

What usually happens is, I am trying to get people to tell me how 

they have finished what I have instructed them to do throughout 

the year with the funds that the Congress has provided, generously 

provided, and then anticipate that I will have a budget on 1 October in which to understand how to make that transition. 

Because these transitions in the past have been difficult. Congress authorizes a carryover opportunity, but it limits what I can 

carry over. And so in one administration, it may be as low as 4 percent, in another, it may go as high as 10 percent. But these are 

limitations. I need to understand what we are doing to close out 

properly, so I know what our carryover is going to be, so that I can 

understand that we are meeting Congress’ intent, and then expecting that I am going to have a budget in which to dovetail these activities into. 

It usually takes me about 10 days at the end of a fiscal year to 

be able to bring this to order. So about today, is when I would have 

these factors coming together, and, in fact, this week would have 

been the week that I would have my fiscal year 2014 execution 

meetings with the various accounts. I would just tell you these factors are coming together daily, and there are adjustments here in 

how much money is available, and the burn rate at which those 

funds will last. And so, we are doing the best we can. 

Two things we are doing here—we are trying to keep our operations going for as long as possible, where we are allowed by exception under the law, to take care of as many veterans as we can for 

as long as possible. The other thing I have to do, is make sure I 

am taking care of our employees so that I am not telling people 

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that they are going to be furloughed, when in fact they aren’t going 

to be. So there is a period of time here not to be alarmist. But at 

an appropriate moment, when we know we are not going to have 

a budget and we are going to have to take other steps, that we will 

inform our employees that they are going to be furloughed. The 

ones that have been furloughed, we have gone through this process. 

But it is not just telling them you are furloughed, close the door, 

and leave. We are going to get a budget here at some point, Mr. 

Chairman. And what I want our offices to be able to do is come 

back and, as soon as capable, be up and running at full speed. And 

that requires us to close out in an orderly function. If I would, you 

know, forgive me, I will fall back to my own military experience. 

At the end of a day, I want everyone in a fighting position to organize for whatever might happen that night. Grenades in one location, rifles oriented in the right direction, left and right aiming 

stakes, ammunition, water, and be prepared. I want us to be in the 

same position, that, when we have a budget, people go back to 

work, and we are up at full speed, so we are taking care of veterans as quickly as we can. I don’t want to spend 30 days trying 

to figure out how we get back to that point. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Michaud. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And I can understand 

why you can’t predict what the Senate will do, or the House, as far 

as that goes. But as I mentioned in my opening statement, there 

are two areas we can solve this. One, the Senate can pass the full 

appropriation bill that we passed about 4 months ago to fund all 

of VA. Or the House can pass the clean Senate CR that will get 

us—unfortunately it is still a CR—but it will still move us beyond 

this particular point. And I understand that even with the full 

MILCON/VA appropriation bill, there are still services that veterans will not be able to receive because other parts of the Federal 

Government are not up and operating because of the shutdown. 

And I totally understand that. But it is my hope that the bulk of 

the VA could be taken care of. 

My question to you, Mr. Secretary, you had mentioned trying to 

get the staff back up and running once the shutdown is done. If, 

say, today that Congress and the President was able to get our act 

together, how long will it take the VA to get up and running full 

steam ahead? And when will you be able to assess some of the 

damages, particularly as it relates to the backlog, that it will take 

to try to get back on track again? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I would say, Congressman, at this point, in 

some sections, hours, to days in others, other sections. But the 

longer we go, then the startup will just take longer. 

The fact is, I have indicated that 1 November, I will not be able 

to pay all these beneficiaries who are expecting those checks. I 

need the authorization, appropriations, and a budget to be able to 

do that. And I don’t do that independently. In order to make those 

claims decisions, I link into IRS and Social Security, with the Department of Education, Small Business. 

So I would say that what is best for veterans, and for all of us 

right now, is a budget for the entire Federal Government. Let us 

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get back to work. The sooner we do it, the faster I get back up to 

full speed. 

Mr. MICHAUD. We did, a couple years ago, passed advanced appropriations for the department of VHA. Are there some components of that, even though they have advanced appropriation, that 

you are not able do because of IT or some other components of the 

VA that would actually hinder VHA in providing the services that 

they need? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, we have had these discussions in the 

past, Congressman. And you know that we are a little bit bifurcated here. We get the generosity of the Congress advanced appropriations for our Health Administration, so they are fully funded 

on 1 October. 

So the question how much of an impact? You know, 80 percent 

of VA is functioning because our hospitals are open, our community-based outpatient clinics are seeing patients, as are our vet centers and our mobile clinics. And so that will continue, and the impact to them is negligible. 

Where we get a little bifurcated is where we have authorization 

to do something with a facility and then we have to wait for our 

IT budget to clear, and then we marry the two up. It is something 

we have worked in the past. Are there easier ways to handle this? 

I think down the road perhaps worthy of discussion. But for right 

now, that would not be able to turn on checks on 1 November, and 

that is my great concern here. 

And I don’t want to be alarmist, but I want to speak for the veterans who are looking in on this. Not only do we have a large number of beneficiaries that are looking for those checks, I have veterans myself that I employ, a third, over 100,000 veterans. A number of them are going to be subject to furlough. And so, if they are 

furloughed and they are also recipients of disability checks, their 

resources go to zero. And then, I have the responsibility of trying 

to figure out how to keep them from becoming homeless. And HUD 

plays in that game. So this is a much larger challenge for us. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Denham. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, as the Chairman outlined in his opening statement, recently the House passed the Honoring Our Promise to 

America’s Veterans Act that, if signed into law, would provide immediate funding for critical veterans benefits and services, including disability claims, education, training, many of the items you 

discussed in your testimony. But you also made an important point 

when you stated that many services veterans rely on are not 

housed directly within VA, like the vets employment programs, the 

Small Business Administration loans are two of those examples you 

cite in your testimony. Could you expand on other types of these 

programs that would be outside of that bill that we passed that is 

now sitting in the Senate? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. You mean other departments that are impacted by this? 

Mr. DENHAM. Impact our veterans that are outside of the VA bill. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Sure. Our claims processing requires, by 

law, our responsibility to check with the IRS for income data, with 

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Social Security for other benefits. And so that is part of the process 

that we go through in completing our claims. 

Mr. DENHAM. Are you saying then that even if the Senate passed 

the VA bill and the Senate were willing to sign that VA funding 

bill, that there would still be some challenges because of the interactivity with the IRS and their furloughs? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Exactly. It depends on the issue, Congressman. It could have greater impact than on others. But the impact 

is there. Education. Whether it is 9/11 GI Bill, Montgomery GI Bill, 

vocational rehabilitation and employment, there are ties that go to 

the Department of Education. So we are not an independent operator here. Employment, veterans employment, a high priority for 

us and for all of you. Department of Labor plays in that. And as 

you indicated, Small Business Administration does play as well. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And second question, you and I have 

talked several times about French Camp, a facility that borders 

mine and Congressman McNerney’s district, affecting all of our veterans. The ongoing construction projects. Can you outline what a 

protracted or a long delay in funding, or a long—a long delay in 

funding would affect both our ongoing construction projects, the 

staff at the VA Office of Construction and Facilities Management, 

or the planning for future VA construction projects? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, if I might, I will get back to 

you with specifics on French Camp. It is just a little more detail 

than I had time to brush up on. But let me just say that in the 

office that overwatches construction, they also have acquisition, logistics, and construction. So depending on which of those topics, 

they are variously affected by the shutdown. 

In the case of construction, for those construction activities that 

are underway, those will continue. Our oversight responsibilities 

will be reduced. But we will continue to provide oversight as best 

we can, ensuring that the requirements of the contract are met. 

Here I am talking about 52 projects and about $12 billion of construction. And the major projects will continue. 

Design, on the other hand, about 20 projects may be delayed, and 

may be significantly delayed depending on how long this process 

goes. And so your question about French Camp, I just need to find 

out exactly where we are in this process. 

Other aspects of this, major leasing actions, about 33 projects liable to be delayed. And here, examples would be the Greenville, 

North Carolina, outpatient clinic, South Bend, Indiana, communitybased outpatient clinic. Butler, Pennsylvania, HCC. And so, you 

know, I would like to see these uninterrupted, but there will be 

some delays here. And the significance will be determined by how 

long the shutdown continues. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Brownley. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here with us today. And 

I certainly agree with your remarks on the importance of passing 

a complete and clean continuing resolution that will provide the 

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certainty, I think Americans are looking for in their government, 

and their leaders. 

As you know, last week the House passed H.J. Resolution 72, 

which was an attempt, I think, to provide some funding for our Nation’s veterans in the middle of this debate that we are having. I 

think that particular bill still underfunded a lot of different areas. 

And I wanted you, if you could, to just sort of speak to those. 

You have already mentioned, I think, a couple. But if you could 

comment a little bit more specifically around, let’s say, the medical 

and prosthetic budget that I don’t believe was funded in that resolution. You have mentioned something, I think a little on the technology piece. The Office of the Inspector General. The grants to VA 

homes, grants to State cemeteries and the like. If you could comment a little bit more specifically about the impacts there. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Sure. As I indicated earlier, with advanced 

appropriations for our health care administration, a large portion 

of VA is fully funded. I would say well over 70, approximately 80 

percent, is funded. And those activities continue. There are pieces 

of our medical activities that don’t come under advanced appropriations. And so, you have cited a couple. Research is another area. 

And so those activities would stop until we had a full budget. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. And just to follow up on an area I 

don’t think we have spoken too much about so far, having to do 

with the GI bill, and what that will mean to veterans who are enrolled in colleges and universities across the country, does that 

mean that they can’t continue, they need to drop out? How are we 

going to handle that? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. So what I would say here is two accounts I 

am dealing with. One is the carryover appropriations of money that 

were not expended in 2013. This carryover in the Benefits Administration, I think roughly $40 million, was used to keep that office 

open as long as possible to take care of all the various categories 

of claims: education among them, disability, pension, compensation, 

vocational rehab and education claims. 

That money, that was exhausted on 7 October. So on the 8th, we 

furloughed over 7,800 of the workforce in the Benefits Administration. We still have about 13,000 people working, because we have 

under the law declared them excepted, and they are excepted because in the other account, the mandatory funding account, which 

currently has money in it, that will end before the end of the 

month. And so we have these folks processing claims. And where 

it is appropriate to make a decision today and pay today, retroactive claims, for example, to pay that back pay, if you will, we are 

doing that. 

But every payment we make reduces the amount of mandatory 

funds, and before the end of the month, this account will be exhausted. At that point, these 13,000 or so people who are doing this 

will have no reason to continue to function because the necessary 

implication clause that allows them to work will be exceeded when 

the mandatory account is exhausted. And at that point, they will 

be furloughed, and our Veterans Benefits Administration will be reduced to, you know, something over a thousand, maybe less than 

1,500 folks, who will continue to operate in our 56 regional offices 

and our call center. 

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And the reason for that is, every veteran who submits a claim, 

we are required to accept it, date stamp it, so there is a place in 

line for them to be recognized when funding is restored. For education claims, students who are currently in school, and as those 

come up, we will pay those like we do the retroactive claims. But 

at some point, that is a draw on the mandatory account, and that 

will end before the end of this month. And I will be required to furlough a large portion of that 13,000 workforce. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, sir. And again, I appreciate you 

being here. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Brownley. 

Mr. Runyan, you are recognized. 

Mr. RUNYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary, thanks again for your testimony. You kind of answered a couple of my questions over there. But what is the last 

day of this calendar month that you can process all award payments for timely receipt on the first of the month? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. It is again. It will be later this month, towards the end of the month. You know, the exact day is going to 

be determined by, pardon the term, the burn rate here. And once 

the mandatory account is no longer solvent, then we will stop. 

But we are processing claims as fast and as hard as we can, as 

we were before 1 October, to ensure that we get as many of those 

claims ready to be paid as soon as the budget is provided. And that 

is the description I give our folks about setting up your fighting position. When the budget is provided, we go to work and we start, 

you know, paying benefits. 

Mr. RUNYAN. Has there been any discussion within your department and/or your staff on prioritization of claims, i.e. fully disabled, 

that type of thing, as you get near that deadline come the first of 

the month? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, there are a good portion, I would say 

over 400,000, 100 percent disabled veterans who will be affected by 

our inability to deliver checks on 1 November. Five million beneficiaries, over 5 million, 5.18 million, I think is a closer number. 

But there are a good portion of them, as I indicated, who are 100 

percent disabled. And amongst them there will be survivors, surviving spouses, children orphaned by the death of their 

servicemember or veteran parent. 

Mr. RUNYAN. But there has been no discussion of priority there? 

You are just doing it as they go through the process? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, we are operating at, while we have the 

funds to operate, we do prioritize in our processing of claims for financially challenged veterans or claimants, Medal of Honor recipients, former prisoners of war, terminally ill. And then we add to 

that fully developed claims, because they are easier to process. 

But in the processing business, that is where we give priority. 

And then we work the remainder of the claims. And I would say 

in September, we produced the biggest production output since I 

have been here, 128,000 claims. But once it goes into the payment 

process, Congressman, then there is a sequence that goes along 

with how they have been put in line. 

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Mr. RUNYAN. Going to the—hopefully when we get out of this 

mess—obviously chairing the DAMA Subcommittee here, dealing 

with the claims is a project. Can you provide information on VBA’s 

funding and the future plans for use of mandatory overtime to address the backlog? Mandatory use in the future to impact the backlog. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mandatory overtime? 

Mr. RUNYAN. Yeah. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. We use mandatory overtime. It is a device 

that has been used over the last several years when we see an opportunity, and we want to get more production because for some 

reason, we have gotten a little behind. And so in May, we declared 

we were going to do this until the end of the year. Our 2014 budget has $50 million in it for overtime, and that is 

essentially what I was counting on, on 1 October, to be able to 

transition to that. So we do have a plan. We do need that piece of 

the budget recognized so we can resume our overtime option. 

Part of what we, as we began to close out the year, before we 

knew that a shutdown was going to occur, and as we were trying 

to assess how much carryover we were going to have, we thought 

we were going to be able to carry over $40 million to apply, to add 

to the $50 million that is in the budget, to give us a good run at 

the year of additional overtime, so the numbers would be up there, 

closer to $100 million, $90 million or so. That $40 million was used 

to keep our operation going for as long as possible, to get as many 

claims lined up before the end of the month. 

Mr. RUNYAN. I thank you for that. Because we had a hearing 

about some difficulty with Legislative Affairs a couple weeks back, 

and have had issues with getting an answer like that from them. 

So I appreciate that. 

Yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Runyan. 

Ms. Kirkpatrick, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

One of the important projects that the VA has been working on 

is the transition to a paperless system for claims benefit processing. And yet in your written testimony, you say on Monday, 

2,764 OIT employees were furloughed. And then the 7,800 VBA 

employees furloughed yesterday. 

Would you describe for me and for our Committee what impact 

those furloughs are going to have on that transition to the 

paperless system? Right now, give us a snapshot right now this 

week, and then what it looks like if this shutdown continues into 

November. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Very important question. Congresswoman, 

as you know, we have set a long-term goal of ending the backlog 

in 2015. Key to that has been the automated system we have put 

into place, and we finished fielding that 6 months ahead of schedule, in June. That is fielding the sort of, the basic model. And much 

like any IT operation, you have newer versions that add capability, 

give you more robustness, and then reduce the workload. 

So all of those plans that have been in place, we have had to put 

a hold on. There is no new development work being done for 

VBMS. And there is much to be done if we are going to get this 

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up to where we expected we would have it, to be able to hold our 

target of ending the backlog in 2015. I haven’t given up on that. 

I am hoping that we will have an opportunity here to get back on 

track. But the longer we go, the more difficult that becomes. 

What I would like to assure you, though, is that I am allowed 

by the rules to maintain what we have. I can’t add, I can’t make 

it better, I can’t increase capability. But I can and will maintain 

the operation. So if computers are having problems, I have sufficient workforce to be able to bring them back online. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. But basically, what you are saying is any 

progress in that project has come to a screeching halt. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. That is correct. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. And let me just ask you, Secretary, you are 

a general with an outstanding, distinguished combat record. And, 

you know, Congress voted to pay Federal employees when the shutdown ends. So they are going to be paid. Does it make any sense 

to you to not allow them to work? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I can’t think of any. And they are ready to 

work. I would just refer to the folks in the Benefits Administration 

who have brought this backlog down, 193,000 claims in about 190 

days. Lots of folks wondered whether we were going to be able do 

it. VBMS will be important to that effort, but VBMS is just coming 

online. So all of this work was done by good folks in the benefits 

administration. I would speak for them. They are disappointed that 

the ground they gained is being lost day by day. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. I just want to thank you for your leadership 

under the department, and thank your employees for their good 

hard work. Thank you. 

And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I would like to remind my 

colleague that only the House has passed a bill that would allow 

for furloughed workers to be paid. The Senate continues to hold 

fast in not helping us resolve this particular situation. 

Dr. Benishek. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. 

I, like all of my colleagues, would like to see this shutdown put 

behind us as soon as possible, and frankly, wish that the appropriation process went on in regular order, that we would have 

passed the appropriate appropriations for all of the segments of our 

government. I am happy that the House has passed the military 

construction and VA bill in a bipartisan fashion, and hope that the 

Senate acts on that. And frankly, I think that the entire government should be funded in that usual fashion, that this policy of 

continuing resolution is just a bad policy. But nevertheless, you 

know, I understand that we have to get something done. 

I had a couple of questions about the communication between the 

VA and the Committee here. As I understand it, and correct me if 

I am wrong, is that apparently the department issued a notice in 

late September that 95 percent of VA employees would be either 

fully funded or exempted from furloughs. Now, is that incorrect? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I would ask for the opportunity to go and retrieve whatever this announcement you are referring to. But I 

would say that if you look at VA as a whole, 90 percent of us are 

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in VHA, and they are fully funded. And so as of 1 October, our hospitals are seeing patients, community-based outpatient clinics are 

operating. So if this is the 95 percent that is being referred to, I 

would say I can understand why that information was provided. 

But again, Congressman, trying to close out 2013 and understanding what kind of resource capability we are going to have, expecting that we are going to have a budget on 1 October, knowing 

that VHA had a budget because it was passed last year through 

the advanced appropriations provision that you all have provided. 

So I think the 95 percent here is referring to VHA because of advanced appropriations. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Yeah, okay. And, frankly, I tend to agree with 

you on the advanced funding issue. Frankly, I don’t see why we 

don’t have 2-year budgeting for everything. You know, it would 

allow us more time to get the appropriations done. But the President on September 30 indicated that some PTSD counseling would 

be affected by the shutdown. Is that true? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I would say we are open for business at VA. 

And I believe, as I have said, we have ties to other departments. 

The IHS and HHS, the Indian Health Service, we have veterans 

being served there who, if those operations are not funded, are not 

being seen for any variety of requirements, PTSD being one. 

Mr. BENISHEK. All right. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Alaskan natives who are veterans that we 

provide services to through either the consortium there or through 

IHS are probably not being seen. And that is why I say, we can 

focus on VA as long as we understand that there is a broader 

group. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Right. And understand that the cooperation with 

other departments is going to be hindered by this situation. There 

is no medical centers being shut down, though, right? All the 

CBOCs are going to be open. That is correct. Is that right? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. There is one that is affected, and that is the 

North Chicago Lovell Health Care Center. It is a joint initiative between the United States Navy and VA. It operates off a joint account in which we each contribute dollars. So that is affected. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Why is that being affected? I thought we funded, 

the President signed a bill that funded the military. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. The authorization to continue to fund that 

is the issue. However, we have excepted all of the civilian staff, excepted meaning that they will continue to work, continue to see 

servicemembers and veterans and families. And then, we will look 

for an opportunity then to make right their compensation. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Okay. Well, I know I would really like to get this 

behind us. And I take this opportunity to urge my Senate colleagues to come to the table and let’s get this figured out. So thank 

you very much. 

I am out of time. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Benishek. 

Ms. Kuster, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KUSTER. Thank you very much. 

And thank you, Secretary Shinseki, for being with us today. 

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My question has to do with the vet centers and the services that 

in my district in New Hampshire are particularly valuable, the 

counseling, the group therapy, and just having a place to go. And 

I am just wondering where this falls in the shutdown. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. All 300 vet centers will continue to operate. 

They are covered under the Health Administration’s appropriation. 

So they are funded for the year. 

Ms. KUSTER. Okay. Thank you. 

And then my next question has to do with the November 1st payments. Could you give us a more accurate sense here? I mean we 

very much want a clean continuing resolution to get the country 

back to work, get the government back to work. But each day that 

goes by seems to be critical in this. I would imagine with the number of checks that go out there is a process and a procedure that 

takes a period of time. Could you give us a sense—you have talked 

about the end of the month—could you give us a sense of the number of days that a delay in reopening the government would cause 

a delay in those payments being received after the 1st of November? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Sure. The mandatory account, it is the account against which I am writing checks, so to speak, processing 

claims and having them ready to be executed, but as that account 

has demands written against it, it is exhausted at some point before the end of the month. And the reason I can’t be more specific 

is the rate at which I am able to do this. 

But before the end of the month, the mandatory account will not 

support payments in November, even though I have checks, you 

know, lined up to draw against it. I think I indicated $6.25 billion 

of requirements, and I will be down to about $2 billion. And if I 

can’t pay it all, it stops. 

And so on 1 November, right now, unless I can provide mandatory funding to make the account solvent again, 1 November, I will 

not be sending checks out. 

Ms. KUSTER. And could you give us a sense of the scope of that, 

the types of people whose lives will be irreparably harmed and sort 

of the categories and the numbers of that devastation? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I think I gave sort of a rough population 

here of 5.18 million beneficiaries. And these are compensation payments, these are pension payments, these are education payments, 

and vocational rehabilitation and employment payments as well. 

And within this category are veterans. There are also 

servicemembers, because we have active duty members who participate in some of our programs. We have surviving spouses and 

children who have lost parents. 

Ms. KUSTER. And I know you can’t speculate as to people’s lives, 

but would you say that these are people that generally don’t have 

a lot of savings to fall back on, that missing this type of disability 

check or this type of compensation check could really set them 

back? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Our eligibility for VA benefits is usually income-based. And so, I would say that a large portion of the beneficiaries we service are lower waged and are in need of our help. 

There will be those who, by virtue of the severity of their combat 

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injuries, will qualify because of that. But by and large, our patient 

population is older, sicker, and in need of support. 

Ms. KUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

And I yield back my time. 

I hope that—I appreciate you coming today, and I hope that your 

testimony will cause all of us to redouble our efforts to get the government back to work. Thank you for your service. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, did I hear you say that disability 

is income-based, or— 

Secretary SHINSEKI. No, I said there are some, because by virtue 

of the severity of their disabilities, come in at a higher category 

here— 

The CHAIRMAN. So people— 

Secretary SHINSEKI.—but in the broad categories. 

The CHAIRMAN. So people with shaving bumps, or sleep apnea, 

or hemorrhoids, or all of those disabilities that are out there today, 

that is—they get that regardless of the income, correct? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, Mr. Chairman, you are getting into 

some detail here that I will probably want to give you a better answer for. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I would just tell you that I will do my best 

to answer your questions on some of those issues, but 1 November, 

no mandatory account, 5.18 million beneficiaries do not receive 

checks. And in response to the Congresswoman’s question, a large 

portion of them are compensation—or beneficiary checks are crucial 

to their being able to have order in their lives. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Huelskamp. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity. 

And I really find this a difficult question to ask you, Mr. 

Shinseki, given the discussion we have had, but do you think Senator Reid doesn’t like our veterans or the VA in particular? 

Mr. WALZ. Mr. Chairman— 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. It is a tough question. The reason I ask that, 

Mr. Secretary, is that, as the Chairman has indicated, 127 days 

ago, the U.S. House passed the appropriations; 105 days ago, the 

Appropriations Committee actually sent it to the floor of the U.S. 

Senate; and for 105 days now, Senator Harry Reid has refused to 

bring the appropriations to a vote in the U.S. Senate. Have you visited with the Senator and asked him, could you please, Mr. Reid, 

bring that to a vote in the U.S. Senate? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Mr. Huelskamp, I am happy to answer the 

question about Senator Reid. Personally, I think he very highly values veterans. 

As to why we are unable, Congress is unable to do its business, 

I will leave to the Members to discuss. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. Well, and I appreciate that, and you 

mentioned Congress, but it is an issue in the U.S. Senate. 

And have you visited with the Senator, to see if the appropriations are—I know have been disappointed in the House, that 4 out 

of 12 appropriations bill is all we passed through the U.S. House, 

and that includes your budget. That means 8 out of 12 have not 

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passed here, but 12 out of 12 have not passed in the U.S. Senate, 

and that has been the case now since 2009. 

Is there any indication in your visits with the Senator that they 

would consider at least passing your appropriations, Mr. Shinseki, 

and I appreciate the work you have done to continue to meet the 

needs of our veterans in this shutdown period. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. To your specific question, have I visited Senator Reid over this, I would answer I have not. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. That is not something that I would ordinarily do. I deal with this Committee and with the appropriate 

Committee in the Senate when it comes to my budget, and that is 

where the work is done. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. And I haven’t compared the budget that came 

out of the Senate Appropriations Committee compared to what 

came through the House by a pretty wide margin, and hopefully, 

it would meet your needs. I would encourage, perhaps, that conversation to take place. 

I would ask you specifically about cemeteries. Are all of your 

cemeteries still open for business, and would they be impacted in 

late October, like you have indicated for other programs? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, that is a great question. I will 

tell you that our operations will continue. At some point here in the 

next days to weeks, we will expend our carryover moneys for NCA, 

and we will be furloughing a good portion of the force. 

However, our cemeteries will go into a modified burial schedule, 

which means, we will continue taking care of families and burying 

our honored, but it won’t be at the rate that we had planned or 

would like. 

Our cemeteries will be open for our normal hours, which is sunrise to sunset. You may see some of our maintenance standards go 

a bit because we won’t be able to maintain the high standards we 

would like to have, but that is all retrievable once we have a budget. 

But the focus here is on taking care of families on a most painful 

day for them and making sure that they feel that their veteran is 

respected and has been accorded a dignified burial. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I appreciate that assurance, and your current work to make sure 

that is available for our veterans and, obviously, their families as 

well. I mean, you have seen the images of other Federal places and 

locations that have been barricaded to our veterans, but I want to 

make certain we keep the cemeteries open, and I appreciate your 

work in doing that and making certain that does occur. 

And I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And I think it does go without saying that we all care about the 

veterans of this country, and what we do have is a failure to communicate, negotiate. And there has been a breakdown in the institutional process of how appropriation bills are in fact passed 

through both Houses of Congress. 

If I am not mistaken, I think the VA MilCon bill that has been 

passed out of the House only had four dissenting votes. So suffice 

it to say that it was an extremely bipartisan piece of legislation. 

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Mr. Walz, you are recognized. 

Mr. WALZ. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to echo that. 

I would like to give the gentleman 30 seconds to apologize to 

Senator Reid if he would like to do that. That is beneath this Congress and certainly beneath this Committee on questioning someone’s commitment to veterans. 

We may have differences on policy and ideology. We certainly 

don’t have differences on love of this country. So I would give my 

30 seconds to the gentleman if he wishes to claim it. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Walz, and I was asking the 

question, given that it is very clear, as the Chairman has indicated, 

that Senator Reid controls the calendar and has the opportunity to 

move that bill to the floor. And since this shutdown has occurred, 

unless there was some recorded votes yesterday, we have had 7 

days in which there has been not a single— 

Mr. WALZ. I reclaim my time. 

I am disappointed, to say the least. 

I hope that goes on record. One of the things I would say about 

this, is this Committee, and I am incredibly proud to serve on it, 

is one of the few places that still works in Congress. The collaboration in here is incredible. The work that is done down to the granular level by Subcommittees actually have power, and that is a testament to you, Mr. Chairman, that you give that power to people. 

And I sat in this very chair arguing and making the case for advanced appropriations on VHA with my colleagues, and we did 

that. That was progress. We have sat here and made progress. 

You know, Mr. Secretary, the work you have done, I am incredibly proud of it, and I have said it time and time again. I am your 

staunchest supporter but your harshest critic. When you get it 

wrong and something happens in Pittsburgh, we bring it up here, 

and we discuss it, and we figure out how to make it better. And 

the conscience that sits behind you representing millions of veterans expects that of us. And it still works and what is so disappointing about this is, and what is so disappointing when we get 

into this, we are wasting valuable time and resources by a self-inflicted wound that should be going toward our veterans. And it is 

so frustrating. 

And what happens, and I appreciate my colleagues on this, but 

here is what happens: It starts to be cancerous into this Committee. Last week, when the bill came up on the veterans to try 

and do them in the CR and to try and make the case, be very clear 

about this, you are trying to find ways, and I respect that, but in 

that bill, and Mr. Runyan was out in Preston and held a field hearing and made a great case for a veterans’ cemetery that has been 

needed for decades in southern Minnesota. 

There is a grant process that you administered, Mr. Secretary, 

that ranked us number one. Three weeks ago, we got that notice, 

and there was a thank you from thousands, 56,000 veterans in 

southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, that were going to get 

that. 

Last week’s bill zeroed that out. 

Now, I know you didn’t do that on purpose, to stick it in the eye 

of my veterans, but I can’t support that. But within 180 seconds 

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of my vote, the campaign committee, on the Republican side, sent 

out an attack that I don’t support veterans by not doing that. 

There is lots of reasons to tell people not to vote for me. Not supporting veterans isn’t one of them. We worked as partners to get 

that right. And that is where we get the point where people’s disgust, people’s anger, people’s frustration, we can come together. 

And the continuous going back and forth, the continuous question, I don’t question a single person’s commitment to our veterans, 

or love of their country. I think you are wrong on some of the policies. This is the place to debate that; not a Martial Law rule that 

goes to the floor with no amendments, so the campaign committees 

can send out an attack ad and try and win an election while veterans are sitting at home saying, Why do I hate Congress? Do I 

need to see any more proof? 

So, Mr. Secretary, I am frustrated you are here. I appreciate you 

trying to go at this. I understand where some of the questions are 

going, that this wouldn’t be just so bad if you just prioritized differently and picked the stuff I like and not the other stuff, but the 

questions I was going to ask, you answered. Interagency collaboration is breaking down. That is incredibly important. It helps move 

forward. IT, and as it impacts electronic medical records that we 

fought together, for 7 years, I have been sitting here trying to get 

that right, that progress is going backwards. So I don’t really have 

any questions for you. 

I trust that you—and the thing I would say about this is, the 

comment that we shouldn’t be talking about furloughs or whatever, 

the VA is an organization of people. Furloughs are the most critical 

issue in that. There is a reason that the VA health care is the best 

in the world. It is because of the people. And when those people 

have uncertainty, those people are laid off, those people are not 

there, it can impact. That is why we advance appropriated. 

But you know it yourself; Mr. Runyan asked a beautiful question—I am in 100 percent agreement with him—not having the IT 

budget advance appropriated has a beautiful MRI machine unhooked in New Jersey that can’t help patients in some cases, 

brought that up. That doesn’t make any sense, and we should be 

today talking about that. 

And I compliment and end with, the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member have approached this the right way. The fix to this, and 

the way to remove veterans, and we anticipated 3 years ago when 

we did advance appropriations, remove veterans from this fight. 

Don’t allow people to grandstand and use them as pawns and continue to work to go forward. Their suggestion on the advanced appropriation on the full VA funding is the way to go. 

And with that, I thank you and I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Walz. 

If I can ask the Committee’s indulgence for just one second and 

recognize Ms. Kirkpatrick for an introduction. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just wanted to welcome to the Committee Mr. and Mrs. Somers, 

who are in the back of the room. Their son, Daniel, an Arizona veteran committed suicide earlier this year. We are going to be doing 

a roundtable with them in this Committee room at 1:30, and so I 

just wanted to acknowledge their presence in Committee. 

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Welcome, and invite everybody to participate in the roundtable 

at 1:30. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Kirkpatrick. 

We welcome the Somers to the Committee room, and to Congress. We certainly add our condolences to you, and thank you for 

your son’s service, and we are extremely sorry for your loss. 

With that, Mr. Amodei, you are recognized. 

Mr. AMODEI. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, going back to the cemetery thing for just a second, 

under the heading of triage until something changes, do your 

present procedures allow, on a case-by-case basis, if there is private 

funding available, to go ahead and either compensate the VA personnel at cemeteries to perform burials in a timely manner? Is 

there anything that would prevent if somebody said, Listen, we 

want to pay the expense to go ahead and do this in the normal, 

instead of warehousing people? Is there an ability, is there anything that prohibits that from happening? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, I am not aware that there is 

anything that prohibits that. But again, we try to serve all the veterans that come to us in as equitable manner as we can, at least 

the appearance of equal treatment. And so just let me research 

that and come back to you. 

What I will tell you is, we continue our burial operations, just 

at a rate less than we are accustomed to. Last year, 122,000 veterans were laid to rest. 

Mr. AMODEI. Well, and I appreciate that. 

I am just saying, if an instance develops somewhere in a country 

at a cemetery where somebody says, it is going to be a few weeks 

and they say, we will go ahead and incur the expense, or somebody 

comes forward and says, we will incur the expense to have it happen in 3 days from now, or something like that, it is not something—or I guess my question that you will get back to me on is, 

there is nothing that prohibits an infusion of funds from a non-appropriated private source to allow somebody to do that in whatever 

the customary manner is in the instance? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, my guess is, if it were permitted, I would be doing it now. My guess is that these are funded 

positions, and people have been put on furlough because of the law. 

And I want to be careful here that I don’t suggest that we have 

ways to work around it. But I will take a look at it. 

Mr. AMODEI. Well, and I appreciate it. When you look at it, make 

very certain it is at no cost to the government, so it is reimbursement for whatever the costs are, so if furloughed people have to be 

brought back at non-government expense, then there better be a 

pretty long opinion that says, no, we will not allow somebody to 

pay our folks to inter these people in the normal course of events, 

whatever that expense may be. 

And with that, I will yield back. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. May I just conclude this thought, Mr. Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

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Secretary SHINSEKI. I would say that the law directed furlough, 

and it is less the cost, but it is the decision that drove us to do this, 

and I want to be sure that I am clear on the law before I answer 

you. It is less how much it costs. I think there is a requirement 

for me here to be in compliance. 

Mr. AMODEI. Well, then, if I may, Mr. Chairman to that, I think 

there is also a requirement for you to look at the overall mission, 

which is bigger than the law. So when you look at those laws, I 

get the furlough. I just want to make sure that everything in VA 

is looked at, so that those trying to be interred in a cemetery get 

the full benefit of all of the laws before the little situation that we 

are in now. Thank you. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I am happy to do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. And Mr. Secretary, I know we are still in a very 

fluid situation, but we reached out and asked, you know, we were 

talking about PTS and Indian Health Service and whether or not 

they could get their health provided there. The IHS document we 

have says that employees at the Indian Health Service will provide 

direct health service to tribal citizens, and will largely be unaffected by the shutdown, and that they would continue to provide 

direct clinical health care services as well as referrals for contract 

services that cannot be provided through their clinics. 

So, you know, again, we are just somewhat confused as to the 

comment that was made in regard to post-traumatic stress, which 

I think everybody on this Committee is very concerned with. And 

I get it. Your statement that you came in here with today, paints 

the worst possible picture that is out there. But in your statement, 

it does not talk about the hundreds of thousands of VA employees 

that are still working and the health care that is provided. So we 

just want to be honest with the questions and the comments that 

are provided. I am not saying that you were not. I am just saying 

that there was an inference earlier on that veterans with post-traumatic stress would not, in fact, get their treatment and we are finding that there appears to be no corner anywhere in which they will 

not have that treatment provided to them. 

Mr. O’Rourke, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for the presentation and your answer 

and responses to our questions and statements so far. I think they 

have been helpful. 

I wanted to add to a comment you made about the VA and veterans being dependent on other Federal departments and agencies 

that may or may not be funded in a piecemeal mini-continuing resolution approach. I want to note that there are nearly 600,000 veterans who work for the Federal Government and that constitutes 

nearly 30 percent of the entire Federal workforce. So these men 

and women who have served our country, who are being furloughed 

or who are working without a clear idea of when they are being 

paid, are being hurt regardless of what we are able to do when it 

comes to funding the VA and the different agencies and departments within the VA. 

That is especially important to me as a Representative for El 

Paso, Texas, where we have the fifth highest concentration of Federal employees of any community in the country; 43,000 people 

VACREP180 with DISTILLER

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that I represent work for the Federal Government. And you know, 

if that 27 percent holds true, well over 10,000 of them are veterans 

who are being affected by this current shutdown. So I think it adds 

to the point that you made that we cannot afford to look at this 

on a piecemeal basis. 

And when I look at the options to get out of this, I want to, in 

the spirit of cooperation, join my colleagues in urging the Senate 

and our Federal Government to move forward on advance funding 

for military construction and Veterans’ Affairs. I think that is critical. 

In the short term, I think our best option is what everyone refers 

to as a clean-funding bill or a clean CR, that funds all of your services and programs and personnel at a sustainable level. The piecemeal approach that we saw last week, and I appreciate those who 

wanted to address the issue that way, but it had zero dollars for 

medical and prosthetic research, no funding for the National Cemetery Administration, no money for general administration, information technology, at a point where we are trying to get veterans who 

want to file fully developed claims to do that online because when 

they do that, their wait time which is now 450 days in El Paso, 

comes down under 100 days. 

And if we are not funding IT, we are not helping them to get the 

response that they need, and that they deserve, and that they have 

earned. Construction on major projects and minor projects is zeroed 

out, as are grants to state VA homes and VA cemeteries. That is 

why I support a clean funding bill, no strings attached. Let’s fund 

the entire Federal Government, perhaps on a short-term basis, 

where we can work out some larger deal. That to me is the 

quickest, cleanest way to help everyone involved, especially our veterans. And I think that is why presidents and leaders of national 

veteran service organizations have come out against a piecemeal 

approach. They want to see us tackle this comprehensively. I know 

that is what you are trying to do, and I think that is what ultimately all of us want to do. 

To add to those national VSOs, we reached out yesterday to our 

local VSOs, said I am going to have a chance to ask questions of 

the Secretary, would like to know what you want me to ask. And 

much of it you have already addressed. 

Timothy Blodgett of the DAV, Post 165, says, ‘‘The VBA budget 

is just as important as the VHA budget,’’ and I think we all agree 

with that and we want to see that that moves forward. 

David Nevarez of the American GI Forum is concerned about an 

issue that you brought up: What happens if the shutdown persists 

and we have veterans who are now in homes who are homeless? 

Will you have the resources to take care of them? 

Richard Britton, a vice commander of the American Legion talks 

about shutdown exacerbating problems that veterans already have. 

David Garcia, commander of the DAV, Post 187, talks about veterans who are recipients of VA and Social Security benefits having 

a really hard time after November 1st. 

And then Kay Davis, president of Veterans of Foreign Wars, actually came up with a solution. Her solution was term limits for 

Members of Congress if we are unable to figure this problem out. 

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But the frustration and the questions really are not with you. 

They are with us. And with the need to respond to this in a way 

that will get the government up and running, functioning again for 

all departments because veterans work in all of them, for all veteran services, because veterans are impacted by all of them, and 

again, from my perspective, the quickest, cleanest way to do this, 

and we could have the government up and running tonight, is to 

vote for a clean funding bill. 

So, Mr. Secretary, again, thank you for your presence today, for 

answering our questions, and commenting on our statements. My 

time is up, so I will yield back to the Chairman, but thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Coffman, you are recognized. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and also thank the 

men and women that work—I like to thank the men and women 

that work for your department to take care of those who have made 

so many sacrifices in defense of our freedom. 

My question goes to the four hospitals that are under construction by the VA. And VA contingency plan states that certain, quote, 

‘‘major construction and facilities management support functions 

will be suspended,’’ unquote during the shutdown. What has been 

the status of the four ongoing major projects in Aurora, Las Vegas, 

Orlando, and New Orleans during the shutdown? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, I indicated that where we 

have work underway on site, that work will continue. Our administrative oversight responsibilities will be diminished, but we will exercise those responsibilities. Payments to contractors and therefore 

payments to the subs, an administrative process that will be 

slowed. But, in time, payment will be made. We just don’t have the 

folks to do that as robustly as we would like. But in terms of site 

work with supervision, that will continue in those locations you described. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Secretary, as you know, the payment has already been—the process has already been very slow according to a 

GAO report that came out in April. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Yes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. In terms of these setbacks that you talk about, 

will they affect, in your view, the completion date and the budget 

totals for each project for these four major hospitals? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Our work is slowed. The longer this goes, 

—I would be concerned that we begin to affect the end of the 

project, that we continue to slide project execution to the right. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Takano, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wish to associate myself with the remarks with the gentleman 

from Texas, Mr. O’Rourke. I think he stated very clearly my sentiments about what needs to be done, a clean CR. I also want to 

thank the Chairman for the tone he set for this Committee, very 

bipartisan sentiments. I think you, Mr. Chairman, understand that 

each of us on this Committee, regardless of party, have a deep and 

sincere commitment to our Nation’s veterans. 

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So I thank you for that, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me also state that, you know, beyond the bipartisan bill that 

we passed on MilCon veterans, even the Budget Control Act of 

2011 reflects that bipartisan spirit and the fact that it exempted 

the Veterans Administration from sequestration cuts. And it is my 

belief that—it is my conjecture that what is happening in the Senate and the holdup with consideration of this bill has to do with 

the complexities of sequestration and the divisions that are occurring between our two sides. I mean, there is a reluctance to pass 

all of the appropriations bills until we see in toto what we are dealing with in terms of whether we are going to—how we are going 

to have to deal with that limit, whether we are going to lift it or 

some negotiation is going to happen over that. 

We need to get to negotiations on the bigger picture. I cherish 

this Committee. I cherish being on it because it is one of—one corner of the Congress that is still functional. And I want to fight 

fiercely to keep that spirit, and I thank the Chairman for the small 

ways in this Committee that he has tried to keep that alive. 

And I have to—I yield back the balance of my time. I have to go 

back to a meeting in my office. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Looks like Dr. Wenstrup is gone. 

Mr. Bilirakis, you are recognized. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for your testimony, General. 

General, let’s summarize again, I walked in just a little late in 

your statement, but which programs I understand because of legislation that we passed, the VA, the health care, the outpatient clinics, the hospitals, the CBOCs are protected, is that correct? They 

will not be impacted. 

But tell me which programs will be impacted because of—due to 

the shutdown. I think our constituents have a right to know, and 

if you could briefly summarize, I would appreciate it very much. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, the Veterans Health Administration, because of its special opportunity to have advance appropriations, courtesy of the Congress, is funded. And so that is hospitals, medical centers, hospitals, vet centers, community-based 

output clinics, and every version of health care center in-between. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. No exception, correct? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. No. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. No exception. They will be funded. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. The only exception where there is impact is 

North Chicago, where I say it is operating, but it is in an excepted 

category. Everyone else in the VA system is fully funded. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay, thank you very much. 

Which programs will be impacted in your opinion and if you can 

give me some deadlines. I know we went through a lot of this, but 

I would like for you to summarize. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. All of the other programs that are not advanced funded are impacted and being impacted. And some of this 

is the degree to which, and when they are going to be impacted is 

a function of how much 2013 residual carryover funds we have 

available, a device that the Congress authorizes, certain percentages that we are allowed to use as carryover to transition between 

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budget years. But if this continues, every one of our departments 

will be impacted. We have a requirement in the Benefits Administration, even if we have expended the mandatory account and 

therefore have no necessary implication, this is one of the clauses 

for exception, to keep people working, at that point, there will be 

a significant requirement to furlough our workforce, who will be 

working until the end of this month, toward the end of this month. 

Thereafter, we will have roughly 1,000 folks operating in the 56 regional offices to ensure that we can receive, account, date stamp 

and control claims that are—will continue to be submitted, both 

through the normal process, and through the call centers. So there 

are people working in the call center as well. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. Thank you, General. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Negrete McLeod. 

Mrs. NEGRETE MCLEOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I know that you said that the VA not only deals 

with the VA, but other departments also, and so those veterans receiving educational benefits and stipends under the GI bill and 

that are attending school now because school has already started 

at various institutions, what will happen after November the 1st, 

you know, if they won’t get their money? Have you talked to the 

colleges, the institutions, the universities? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congresswoman, we are doing everything we 

can while we have mandatory funds available, at least two accounts, two categories that we will expend money to cover immediately. One is the retroactive aspects of a claim. So someone who 

is due money for previous authorization up until this point, to the 

best of our ability, we pay those, and for students currently in 

school, we pay those as well. 

But that draws down this mandatory account I am speaking 

about. So, on 1 November, before the end of this month, it will be 

in a situation where I can no longer pay. And the 1 November payments that should be going out will not be able to do that unless 

more mandatory funding is provided. 

So it is, if there is funding in the mandatory account, which has 

got to come through appropriation, then I can accept people to continue to work to draw that down. Without that, by law, I have to 

furlough these folks. 

Mrs. NEGRETE MCLEOD. So what happens to students that are 

already in classes that have already started the semester or the 

quarter, whichever they are on? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, at this point, this is a crucial question 

because for students who have already registered and had their 

tuition and fees paid up front, I think they are going to be okay. 

Where—and if they have drawn their book stipend, then I think 

they are probably covered. Every situation is different. But I will 

not be able to pay the monthly housing stipend, and that would be 

an issue. 

Mrs. NEGRETE MCLEOD. Have the schools, or the universities or 

the colleges made any kind of—I am sure they are aware of our 

shenanigans here. 

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Secretary SHINSEKI. I can assure you we have reached out to 

schools, and are doing the best we can to get their support and cooperation, to be able to carry this for payment. 

But the schools are not involved in the housing stipend. That is 

directly from VA to the students. So that is an issue. And I would 

tell you that in my past experience, the schools have been quite cooperative. There are 6,000 of them, and so we want to be sure that 

we have contacted all of them. 

Mrs. NEGRETE MCLEOD. Thank you so much for your testimony 

today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Ms. Walorski, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good to see you again, Mr. Secretary. 

You had mentioned earlier the South Bend CBOC would be delayed. We were notified more than 4 weeks ago there was already 

a delay in the South Bend CBOC. So my question is, it obviously 

has nothing to do with this government shutdown. So would your 

plan then be to expedite that CBOC, once the furloughed workers 

are back and if something was delayed prior to a shutdown, that 

it would be expedited after a shutdown? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Yes, we will do our best to get back on 

schedule. It was going slower than we would like, but this has just 

exacerbated the situation. But our effort will be to get all of these 

projects back online as soon as we can. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And then my second question: I appreciate that. 

My second question is, according to the most recent Monday morning report, the Indianapolis regional office has 11,460 claims pending, has nothing to do with the government shutdown. This is prior 

to the shutdown. And these claims are taking an average of 402 

days to complete, over a year, still, in the State of Indiana to process these claims. So my first question is, is there an urgent plan 

when these furloughed workers come back to deal with these hot 

spots in the country? And number two, if this Furlough Plan Retroactive Fairness Act is signed by the President, are your employees 

coming back to work the next morning? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I don’t know about the next morning, but as 

soon as they are notified, we expect that they will be in promptly. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And then what would be the plan be for highimpact areas like Indiana with 11,000 veterans by no fault of their 

own, no fault of a government shutdown, sitting for over a year 

still waiting for claims to be mitigated on their behalf? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, Congresswoman, again, I think you recall, we have made decisions that created an increase in the inventory and increase in the backlog, and we predicted 3 years ago that 

that backlog would sort of hit the high point this year, and it did 

on 25 March. 

Since that time, we prioritized claims that are older than 2 

years, that essentially 99 percent of those are done. Claims that 

are 1 year of age or older, we are well into the 80 percent of taking 

that down from like 300,000, down into the double digits here. 

I will have to look at Indianapolis and see what the issues are, 

but they would be in this prioritization that we have been in. AnyVACREP180 with DISTILLER

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thing older than 1 year, we intended to have done here before the 

end of this year. And we are on a track to do that and would like 

to get back on it. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. I appreciate that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Titus, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. TITUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you Mr. Secretary for being here. 

I will apologize, if some won’t, for the inappropriate attempt by 

people to drag you into the politics of this unfortunate situation. 

I am the Ranking Member of the Disability Assistance Subcommittee, and I carefully monitor those Monday morning reports. 

I guess we won’t be able to get those now because of this unnecessary shutdown. And I am optimistic about the strategy we have 

made. We have heard in that Committee about the 80 percent of 

the 1-year backlog; the 99 percent of the 2-year backlogs. I think 

it is remarkable progress, and it is just a crying shame that some 

of that is going to now be pushed back because of this shutdown. 

We have spoken a number of times about what is happening in 

the Reno office, which serves Las Vegas. It also has very long waiting periods, but we have addressed some of that. General Hickey 

has been out to visit. That is kind of in process and making some 

progress. There is still a long way to go. 

But I have been hearing some conflicting reports about the closing of the regional offices. Some closed, some not. Could you kind 

of go into some detail about how that choice is being made, or what 

is happening in those regional offices during this shutdown? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congresswoman, I sort of laid out a timeline 

here, that I have roughly the Benefits Administration just round 

figures about 20,000 people. Nearly 8,000 of them have been furloughed 2 days ago. The remaining 12,000, 13,000 continue to work 

because there are mandatory funds available in the account, and 

I continue to draw down on that. 

At the point that mandatory account is depleted before the end 

of this month, that will happen. At that point, I have no necessary 

implication to continue to have this workforce present. And at that 

point, I will—we will be forced to furlough these individuals. The 

law requires it. Beyond that, we will keep a small workforce 

present. My understanding is all of the regional offices and the national call center will have presence in order to receive claims, date 

stamp claims, and control that property for the veterans who have 

made the effort to submit them. But it will be a much reduced operation, receipt only, and no processing. 

Ms. TITUS. But you won’t be making choices, say, between the 

Waco office, and the Reno office, or the Indianapolis office? It is 

going to be across the board? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. That is correct. 

Ms. TITUS. And if somebody walks in will there be somebody 

there to receive a claim? They just won’t be able to get information 

about the progress of their claim? Is that basically how it will 

work? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I will say, yes, the claims can be submitted. 

I will have—by location, we are in facilities that are run by the 

General Services Administration, and merely walking in, I will 

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have to find out exactly how that goes. But we are not sole occupants of many of the regional offices, many of the buildings in 

which our regional offices are located. But that is a good point. I 

mean, that is something I will go check on. 

Ms. TITUS. And if they called, or if they call and they can’t get 

you, they are going to call our office to find out, so if they call your 

office to get an update about claims, what will they—what will 

happen? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Our national call center will be taking calls, 

and they are going to be up and running for just that reason. 

Ms. TITUS. But not the regional offices? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. The regional offices will be much reduced, 

and my sense is they will be fully engaged in receiving and date 

stamping claims, and they won’t be running a call center out of the 

regional offices. 

Ms. TITUS. Well, thank you very much, and thank you for what 

you are trying to do to make the most of a bad situation. I can only 

imagine that the challenges you are facing are much greater than 

those that you have even outlined for us here today because of this 

unnecessary shutdown. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Flores. 

Mr. FLORES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Shinseki, for being here today. Thank you for 

your service to our country, and to our Nation’s veterans. 

I want to start by giving a shout out to the Waco Regional Office. 

I visited with them several times over the last 2 years, and they 

were making remarkable progress on taking care of their disability 

backlog, and Director Limpose and the team there have done an 

outstanding job. I, just like you, are very concerned about the impact that this shutdown could have on their operations, and what 

could potentially happen to our veterans. 

So I have a couple of questions in that regard. The first one is: 

Why is the GI bill hotline closed when other VBA hotlines remain 

open? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Say that again. Why is the— 

Mr. FLORES. Why is the GI bill hotline closed when other VBA 

hotlines remain open? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. The one hotline I know will remain open is 

our crisis, veterans’ crisis hotline. That is funded by the Health Administration. 

Mr. FLORES. I am talking about the call center in Muskogee is 

apparently closed. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I will go and—if you permit, try to provide 

you a better answer on exactly which ones are open. 

Mr. FLORES. Okay, that will be fine, you can follow up. The next 

question is fairly simple, but it is going to take a little bit of time 

to give you the background so we can build up to it. And it is— 

it goes back a few months, starting with the newer information 

that says that the White House had some involvement in the IRS 

targeting of certain groups. And then it builds from there by saying 

that the Park Service has said that they have been told to make 

it as tough on Americans as possible during this shutdown period. 

VACREP180 with DISTILLER

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So again, that doesn’t have anything to do with you or me right 

now. But back on September the 19th, this Committee held a hearing, and it had Assistant Secretary Joan Mooney. And I asked her 

a question about whether or not the Office of Congressional Legislative Affairs had ever been influenced by the White House in 

terms of its responses to Congress. She replied at that time that 

they had not. But then she sent me a follow-up letter a few days 

later, and she said that sometimes that the White House does intervene on correspondence between the VA and Congress. 

So, again, this is still setting up the background for this information. And then if you go through the timeline of activities that we 

have seen recently: There was a field guide that was issued on Friday, September the 27th, the VA stated that disability claims processing would not be affected. Then, on September the 28th, the VA 

notified the House Veterans Affairs’ Committee that they would 

not be able to send the November benefit checks because funding 

would run out in late October. You have confirmed today so there 

is nothing new there. 

But then, on September the 30th, President Obama had an interview and he stated that veterans, and I quote, ‘‘Veterans will find 

their support centers unstaffed,’’ which was a direct contradiction 

of the field guide that said that the vet centers would not be affected from a couple of days earlier. And then, in that same interview, the President also intimated that the shutdown would affect 

somebody in the VA office who is counseling one of her vets who 

has got PTSD. 

On October the 1st, the VA updated the field guide, or it was 

amended to add that the end-of-month caveat to benefits payments 

bullet in the original field guide. 

Then yesterday, I get the news that the Waco Regional Office has 

had to lay off a third—or furlough a third of its staff. 

So, again, this goes back to my question, which is fairly simple, 

and that is, did someone at the White House, or the Office of Management and Budget, or the Treasury, or any other Federal agency, 

or any other Federal employee ask you or anyone else in the Veterans Administration to modify the timetable under which the VA 

was going to begin its operational wind down, if you will, to deal 

with the lapse in appropriations? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Fair enough. I think if your perspective is 

that there is the ability to reach in and understand and influence 

how we operate, I would say it is just the opposite. Now, look, we 

are faced with an unusual event. A shutdown of government 

doesn’t occur frequently, and we have no good plans in place. We 

had to go back and look at what happened in 1996 to have some 

idea what the requirements were going to be. 

At the same time, we have a 13 close up, and you know, if on 

the 5th of September, whenever Ms. Mooney testified, if someone 

had said we are going to shut the government down, I will guarantee you, between the 5th of September and 30th of September, 

there would have been actions that I would have perhaps taken differently. That didn’t become obvious to us until the last week, 

maybe Wednesday of the last week of September. And then we had 

to do these assessments. And if your complaint is that we 

changed— 

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31 

Mr. FLORES. Let me reclaim my time for just a minute. 

I am not complaining. I was asking you a simple question on 

whether or not the White House had any influence over the timetable for the VA shutdown process. I think you have answered it 

no. And I just wanted to say— 

Secretary SHINSEKI. No, the answer is no. 

Mr. FLORES. I am glad to hear that answer. You and I both agree 

that, I think that—well, let me rephrase that. I think most of us 

in here agree that the House has done its work by passing two appropriations bills that would deal with this issue. One is the 

MilCon VA bill, which would fully fund VA. We wouldn’t be sitting 

here having this discussion today. Also, we passed H.J. Res. 72 last 

week, which would fund the VA so that we wouldn’t have this conversation. Both of those bills passed on a bipartisan basis. So I 

would urge those folks that are listening to this hearing to be sure 

to influence the Senate to take up on those two bills. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Brown, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. 

Let me be clear, I keep hearing ‘‘the Senate, the Senate.’’ I put 

the responsibility straight here with the House. 

We could pass a clean CR, and you would not be sitting there. 

I have done, my entire career, all I could do that veterans would 

not be caught up with the House and the Senate politics. 

I don’t blame the Senate. I thank God for the Senate. 

The bad politics of this House, and at some point, you know, let’s 

don’t confuse nobody with the facts. 

Now, we have been talking about November 1. I want to talk 

about October the 17th. If we do not pass the full faith and credit, 

if we default, what will happen to all of the mothers and the 

spouses in the TRICARE and the checks that go out for the VA, 

period? Tell us what is going to happen when these people in the 

House let us default on our credit? What happens to the VA, and 

the people that have been talking to me aren’t Federal employees. 

They are contractors. And the contractors are not going to get any 

back pay. They are being laid off in droves because the Government is not effective and the House is responsible. 

This House could pass a clean CR. For the first time ever in the 

history, I voted against a VA bill because this piecemeal bill was 

$6 billion less than the full spending bill we passed out of here. So, 

now, please respond. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, Congresswoman. 

I would just repeat what the President has pointed out. What he 

looks for the Congress to do is two things: One, provide a budget 

so we can operate as a government; and two, pay the bills that 

have already been incurred. And both of those issues are at play 

here. I am looking for a budget and so is the rest of the government, so we can do what we are charged to do. And then paying 

the bills is the issue, the debt ceiling, and that—those are authorizations that have already occurred. 

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32 

Ms. BROWN. But what happens on the 17th if we default? What 

happens to the VA? Will—the veterans ask me—will they get their 

checks? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congresswoman, I am planning to operate 

as long as I can this month, but at a certain point here in days, 

I will begin to furlough people, and that will have to do with my 

inability to continue to operate under the carryover. And so whatever occurs with the discussions of debt ceiling, I imagine will be 

even worse, but beginning here, in days to weeks, before the end 

of this month, for the most part, VA will be reduced in operations. 

My office will be 90 percent shut down, my office. 

And the Legislative Affairs, with whom you deal frequently, will 

be down to one person; Public Affairs down to one person. And then 

for the rest of our operation other than receiving claims and looking after families that are expecting us to provide the appropriate 

burial services, all of that will be reduced. 

Ms. BROWN. So I just want to be clear. I want you to know, this 

is a self-imposed disaster on the veterans and on the country. 

There is no need, as we sit here. I mean that the Senate and the 

President had agreed to the poor levels of the House. They have 

agreed to it. Clean CR, and we could move forward. But yet, we 

have people that want to blame the Senate, want to blame the 

President. At 20 minutes to 12, we want a conference. It was over. 

The House is inept. I have been in here for 22 years, and I have 

never seen anything like the people who serve in this House that 

act like they care about the veterans. They talk the talk, but they 

don’t walk the walk. They are out at the cemeteries or out at the 

memorial saying, Oh, we don’t know why it is shut down. Well, you 

voted to shut it down a few hours earlier. This is a sad state of 

affairs. 

This Committee used to be bipartisan. And now you got a few 

Members that are dragging the House of Representatives down, the 

People’s House. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The gentlelady’s time has completely 

expired. 

And for the Members of this Committee and those that may be 

listening today, the VA Continuing Resolution that the House actually put on the floor that has been berated by a couple of Members, 

saying that it was less than folks wanted by $6 billion, was exactly 

the same piece of legislation that Senator Sanders filed Monday 

night. And so folks that are out there saying we shouldn’t do this 

by piecemeal, Senator Sanders, along with Ms. Hirono, Mr. Begich, 

Mr. Tester, and Mr. Blumenthal, which coincidentally held a news 

conference at the very same time we have been having this hearing 

with the Secretary, to say that we should not be using him as a 

punching bag. 

Mr. Secretary, I trust that we have not used you as a punching 

bag today. We are trying to get the information out to the veterans, 

and again, you have talked in depth about those things that we 

will not be able to do. But my question, how many employees within VA will still be on the job after November 1st if this shutdown 

continues? 

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33 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Again, Mr. Chairman, I—let me take that 

one for the record to give you the specificity that you are looking 

for. As I say, there are still factors coming together to tell me how 

long I operate. I have told you that the mandatory funds are expected to be depleted before the end of this month, affecting both 

the 1 November checks and affecting the VBA in large measure. 

Their present workforce of about 13,000 people will be severely reduced, will be down to about 1,100, and roughly 1,000 people in 

VBA. So we will have people functioning in VBA. 

NCA will likewise have to furlough a significant portion of their 

workforce and will go to modified operations. VHA is fully funded, 

and so when you look at the account, it will look very large, but 

that is because VHA is about 80 percent of our workforce and our 

budget. 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. But I do think it is important to remember that, 

you know, that your total employees are about 335,000. And so 

when we talk about numbers of 10,000, 4,000, those are big numbers, but as it relates to the overall number of 335,000, I would appreciate, and you have already said that you would take it for the 

record. I would appreciate you getting that information to us. 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, I have just a quick question. 

The CHAIRMAN. The chair does not recognize the gentlelady from 

Florida. Her time has expired. 

Mr. Secretary— 

Ms. BROWN. I have a question, Mr. Chairman, on the question 

that you were asking the Secretary. 

The CHAIRMAN. Madam— 

Ms. BROWN. You are asking about the number of employees. My 

question is, how many people that receive checks will not be getting those checks? I think that is a bigger question. 

The CHAIRMAN. Again, the gentlelady is not recognized for her 

question. And I appreciate what she is asking. 

But, you know, I would—we knew the possibility of this some 

time ago. I don’t believe anybody in this room wanted to be where 

we are today. Do you believe the same thing, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. From my background, I would say you look 

at all the options. This is not one I believed would happen. I just 

didn’t think the august Members of this Committee or the Congress would allow this to happen. 

So I had plans, and we have quickly dusted them off, and within 

72 hours gone into emergency procedures to continue to take care 

of veterans as long as we could, and then ensure the orderly shutdown of our activities. So we are taking care of our people as well. 

So, Mr. Chairman, if you knew a shutdown was going to happen, 

it wasn’t shared with me. Yes, you always look at the possibilities. 

I didn’t think, I just didn’t think you would allow this to happen. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I think most Members of this Committee 

would say that we do not want to be here. This was not an intended consequence. But we are here. And we have asked you to 

come in and talk to us. And my question, I guess, is at what point 

did you start doing extraordinary measures to prepare for this and 

begin to scale back some expenditures so that you would not be 

perceived as making foolish expenditures of funds that may be necVACREP180 with DISTILLER

34 

essary? You probably can gather where I am going with this question. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I don’t gather where you are going. 

The CHAIRMAN. How did we end up with the $500,000 worth of 

art in Kansas? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Sure, I would be happy to answer that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Why have we been spending over a million dollars in the Washington, D.C., area on PR ads? 

Again, I think those that are being furloughed want these questions asked. It is not a political question. It is a question as to 

prioritization, because we are talking about the people not getting 

the benefits that they have earned, not being able to be buried in 

a timely fashion, yet we can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on things that probably the general public would think were 

inconsequential to taking care of our veterans. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. You raised artwork. And I think the suggestion that this was year-end spending, that is not the case. There 

were three facilities that have been in the process of being constructed and/or major refurbishment. In the case of the Miami facility, it is an 843,000-square-foot facility, 11 floors. Major renovations in this facility hadn’t been done since 1980s. And that project 

is completed. And part of the project was to replace wall hangings, 

photographs, prints that add to that environment that says it is a 

healing environment and welcoming to veterans. 

West Los Angeles, a 16,000-square-foot facility in which homeless 

and mental health clinics have been provided. And then the Jacksonville Community Based Outpatient Clinic, a new construction 

project, 102,000 square feet needed to be outfitted. All total, about 

1,400, a little over 1,400 wall hangings, photographs, prints, pictures of veterans, pictures of local scenery that veterans in that 

area would recognize. I think artwork is probably an inappropriate 

description here. I think the average cost is under $400, all expenses included. 

Those were part of the project. They were funded and part of the 

execution. If there was a way to have anticipated the shutdown 

and redirected some of those moneys, I probably would have done 

it. But again, I say that it is not until the last week in September 

that it was clear that what was going to happen would happen. 

And we went into emergency procedures. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I apologize for not recognizing Mr. 

McNerney for your question. Thank you for your indulgence. And 

you are recognized. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman 

Miller, and also Ranking Member Michaud, for inviting me to the 

Committee hearing, and the other Members of the Committee for 

not objecting. It is good to be back here. It is a great Committee. 

This is a terrible hearing, though, to make that happen. 

So I do want to say the situation is dire. On November 1st, we 

are going to cut off hundreds of thousands of disability recipients, 

of students that are depending on the GI Bill, families whose veterans or active servicemembers who have died. I think the American public needs to know the dire situation. We are going to be 

sending hundreds of thousands of people into dire straits, maybe 

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making them homeless. And there is no excuse. We need to solve 

this problem. We need to solve it in the next week. 

So I do have some specific questions. Mr. Secretary, in addition 

to Mr. Denham, my colleague and neighbor, I would like to know 

from you about the impact of the shutdown on the French Camp 

project. I would like to know specifically its priority. And I will 

take that offline. 

Now, as you know, the veterans service organizations staff members, the VSO staff members, use the VA regional offices to help 

counsel veterans. But the VSO staff members are not members, are 

not employees of the VA. Could the VA allow them to continue to 

use the facilities? I understand a lot of them are shut out from the 

facilities. Can they continue to use those facilities to help counsel 

our veterans? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I am told that we are not allowed to do that. 

But again, this is a day-to-day assessment. We go back and check 

to make sure that the interpretation of the law is clear. But these 

are some pretty well-defined rules that we operate under. The 

Anti-Deficiency Act has provisions for two categories. One is protection of life and property and the other one is necessary implication. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, are there any other functions that the 

VSOs normally perform that they are not able to perform now? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. We will look for every opportunity to help 

them be successful in their mission. It is part of our mission as 

well. But, frankly, we are trying to process as many claims as we 

can before the mandatory account is depleted. And then thereafter 

we are into receiving and date stamping claims. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, you said, I believe, that the VA processing 

claims are continuing. Are there decisions being made about these 

claims? And if so, are the veterans being notified about those decisions? Or is that on hold? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. In those circumstances where we are able to 

pay, and I described the retroactive aspects of this, we won’t be 

able to pay continuing monthly benefits. But for those veterans 

who have a date stamp that goes back some time, when that is 

awarded, we try to pay the retroactive portion of that. The monthly 

cycle picks up in November. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So they will be notified if a decision is made 

even if they are not able to get their check. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Well, they will be notified if we are able to 

pay the retroactive aspect of that. And then we will process the remainder of the claim and put that in the line. 

For students who are currently in school, I think I answered a 

question earlier that says that, as long as we have mandatory 

funds remaining, we will honor as many of those requests as we 

can. But those all draw the mandatory account down. And before 

the end of the month, it will be depleted. And then we will look 

to furlough the workforce that has been doing that. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Are the prescription drug benefits being impacted, veterans’ prescription drug benefits? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Say that again. I am sorry. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Are the veterans’ prescription drug benefits 

being impacted by the shutdown? 

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Secretary SHINSEKI. Prescriptions, Veterans Health Administration is fully funded, and so medications are available and will be 

filled. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to participate today. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Bilirakis, you have any other questions? 

Mr. Coffman? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one more question. 

Mr. Secretary, my Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 

uncovered that the VA’s cybersecurity protection measures were inadequate, even when the VA has been fully funded before the shutdown. In fact, the investigation discovered numerous occurrences 

when foreign state-sponsored hackers infiltrated the VA network. 

How has the shutdown affected the private information of veterans 

and their families? Are these 20 million individuals in the VA system now at even greater risk? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, I will tell you of what we 

know. We will have the ability to respond to what we know. But 

there is, as you would expect, more to this than sometimes even 

we are able to know. So we do take steps to assure the security 

of our system. Every event better prepares us for the next. And we 

are active here. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Michaud, you are recognized. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a quick follow-up question, Mr. Secretary. You mentioned 

about the delays and the overtime you already had in your original 

budget you presented to Congress, as well as anticipating, I think 

it was $40 million to carry over for next year’s budget. Since you 

have utilized that $40 million, you can’t carry it over, and since the 

delays have caused the backlog to creep back up again, will you be 

requesting an additional supplemental to deal with replacing that 

$40 million, as well as more overtime money to get you back where 

you have to be as far as the backlog? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. I think the basic question is, am I going to try to reconstitute that $40 million? I will find every way I can internal my accounts. And if I am not able do that and I need to look 

for support here to get that funding in place to be able to get veterans the care they need, I will seek it. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Huelskamp? 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did want to take 

a note, a little bit of time, I would like to apologize to anybody on 

this Committee that might have been offended by my trying to find 

out exactly why the U.S. Senate has not voted on these appropriations. I do appreciate the bipartisan nature of this Committee. But 

I think we all agree here that our veterans should not be used as 

pawns in this particular debate. And I appreciate the work in 

terms of the Secretary. 

VACREP180 with DISTILLER

37 

But the language that I have seen, in particular reference to the 

individual in the Senate that I asked a question about, has used 

some language that I don’t think anybody in this Committee has 

used, has not called anybody an anarchist or a fanatic or insane. 

That is the language we hear coming out of here, and it does no 

service to our veterans. So I apologize if anybody took offense at 

trying to figure out why we have not seen a vote in that. 

I appreciate the Secretary continuing to try to work with the 

Senate, encourage them to bring that to a vote. I am pretty confident, based on what we hear here, that that can go right to the 

President and keep those doors open. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Huelskamp. We have 

asked the other Members if they have any—Mr. Ruiz, do you have 

a question? 

Mr. RUIZ. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Sorry, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Ruiz, you are recognized. 

Mr. RUIZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Shinseki, thank you for your service to our country. 

The government shutdown has caused a crisis that could have 

been avoided had Congress simply worked together to put people 

ahead of politics and solutions above ideology. It is unconscionable 

that Congress continues to put political gamesmanship above the 

needs of our veterans. 

The best way to help veterans in my district and across the country is to end this reckless shutdown. Now that the VA is required 

to furlough thousands of employees, how will that affect the veterans claims backlog and constituents, specifically in my district? 

Meaning, how will furloughs impact the LA regional office and the 

San Diego regional office which review claims for veterans in my 

district? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congressman, as I indicated earlier, our availability of carryover funding for 2013, roughly $40 million, we 

exhausted that on 7 October, and then had to furlough about 7,800 

people. We have about 13,000 benefits employees who are doing 

what they always do, and that is, you know, process claims as 

quickly and as accurately as they can. With the end of mandatory 

overtime, we are doing that at 1,400 claims each day less than we 

were doing, you know, before 30 September. So there is a cumulative effect here. 

These employees will continue to work until such time as something we call the mandatory account, that currently has some residual funds, they will continue to process claims until that point. 

And where we can pay for a retroactive claim or for a student 

claim, we will continue to do that. But as we do that, we draw 

down the mandatory account. When the mandatory account is exhausted before the end of this month, then the vast majority of 

these people will also be furloughed, and that will begin to have 

a great impact on the backlog. Today, the backlog is already 2,000 

higher than it was on 30 September. So it is already beginning to 

have an effect. 

Mr. RUIZ. Well, I want you to know that we will continue, I will 

continue to advocate for pragmatic solutions so that we can open 

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our doors, specifically for our veterans. My office in the district has 

not shut down. We have extended hours, and we are even working 

weekends, if a veteran needs it, to come and pick up that mantle, 

because the mantle that has been dropped by this ridiculous shutdown. And we will be there for our veterans. And I look forward 

to collaborating with you so that once we open our doors, those veterans that have been ill-affected by this will have expedited, 

prioritized treatment so that we can continue to serve the veterans 

to the best of our abilities. 

So I appreciate your service to our country, and thank you very 

much. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Thank you. That is my intent as well, Congressman. 

Mr. RUIZ. Thank you. I yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ruiz. 

I would like to recognize for a final question Ms. Brown. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Chairman, I 

would like, before I ask my question, the four service organizations 

sent a letter to Congress not supporting the piecemeal VA bill on 

the floor. So is it possible that I could submit that to the record? 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Now, because, you know, to talk about what a Senator introduced, I don’t want to talk about the Senate, I want to talk about 

the House, the House of Representatives, where I serve. And, Mr. 

Secretary, my question to you is, come November, or the third 

week in October, will 3.8 million veterans not get their checks in 

the mail? Benefits, that is a nice thing, but checks is what they live 

on. Most veterans that get those checks are on fixed income. Explain to me how they are supposed to make it. 

Secretary SHINSEKI. Congresswoman, effective 1 November, if we 

don’t resolve this, those veterans will not receive pension compensation. For veterans who are in school, their education checks, 

vocational rehab. And those beneficiaries are not just veterans, 

that is 3 million veterans, but when you add surviving spouses and 

children, it is over 5 million individuals who will be involved. I 

mean this is serious, and I am hoping that the leadership of this 

Committee will help us resolve it. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

You know, I was told that the House, somebody fed them some 

snake oil. So I went home and tried to find snake oil. I think it 

is just in Texas. So I did look for some holy oil, and I did bring 

some back. 

But this is not a joke. This is very serious. Veterans have come 

up to me in church Sunday, because that is the only place I went 

Sunday, two services, and I needed more, and they wanted to know 

about their benefits. And I told them, as of October the 17th, if we 

default, they will not get their benefits. And I told the Social Security people the same thing. You know, is this true? Will they not 

get their benefits? Is this a game? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. That is not a game, Congresswoman. There 

are veterans and servicemembers, families, children counting on 

us. And they expect us to deliver. Five million of them will be impacted here severely. 

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Ms. BROWN. I hope that there is some leadership on this Committee that will work with the leadership in the House and come 

up with a clean continuing resolution, because the problem that we 

have is that so many of the people that has been furloughed, they 

are contract people, they will not get back pay. And many of them 

are veterans. Do you all have contracted employees also? 

Secretary SHINSEKI. We do. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentlelady. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here, again on short notice, 

and for over 21⁄2 hours. We appreciate you taking the questions. We 

do have other questions that we will submit to you for the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. And in particular, I want to ask that you help 

this Committee in furthering a bill that was passed out of this 

Committee in a 100 percent bipartisan fashion, that is advance 

funding for the remainder of VA’s budget, so that we don’t get into 

this type of situation any more. 

All members will have 5 legislative days with which to revise 

and extend their remarks. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Miller, Chairman 

Good morning. This hearing will come to order. Before we begin I’d like to ask 

Unanimous Consent for the gentleman from California, and former Member of this 

Committee, Mr. Jerry NcNerney to join us at the dais. Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome. I appreciate you being here on short notice. 

We’re here today to understand how veterans are being impacted by the lapse in 

appropriation that has led to the government shutdown. There is plenty of blame 

to go around as to why we’re in this position, but that’s not why I called this hearing. Put simply, we’re looking for the best information possible on what all of this 

means for veterans. 

Veterans want to know whether their disability checks and GI Bill benefits will 

be paid on November 1 and thereafter. They want to know if their disability claims 

will be decided or further delayed. Families want to know if their loved ones will 

receive a timely burial at a VA national cemetery. And many of VA’s employees 

want to know whether they’ll be serving veterans on the job, or whether they’ll be 

furloughed. 

I understand that the answers to some of these questions are entirely dependent 

on how long this shutdown lasts. And although I want it to be over quickly, it is 

our responsibility to ensure that the public, especially veterans, understand precisely what the current state of play is. 

Mr. Secretary, we’ve had some difficulty in the last couple of weeks getting good 

information about VA’s contingency plan and the effects a lapse in appropriation 

would have on veterans. For example: 

• First, the original field guide VA put out regarding the shutdown’s impact at 

first spoke of no effect on payments to veterans or processing of their benefits. 

But in a later version, VA stated that a prolonged shutdown would impact both, 

but didn’t provide precise details as to how. 

• Second, the Veterans Health Administration is not shutdown at all because it 

received its full year appropriation for 2014 back in March. So, hospitals, clinics, and Vet Centers should all be open for business. Yet the President made 

a statement the day before the shutdown saying that veterans ‘‘will find their 

support centers unstaffed,’’ and implying that counseling services for veterans 

with PTSD would be affected. 

• Third, this Committee has consistently been told that VBA’s mandatory overtime effort towards the backlog would end on September 30. Yet days into the 

shutdown, we were informed that the shutdown prevented VA’s planned continued payment of overtime. 

• Fourth, although a shutdown should have a relatively uniform effect across all 

Regional Offices as suggested by VA’s field guide, my staff met with several representatives from the veterans’ organizations last week who relayed that their 

members are hearing mixed messages out of different Regional Offices. 

I want to be clear that none of this is ideal. Some degree of confusion is to be 

expected. VA employees should be worrying about VA’s mission of service to veterans, not planning for furloughs or managing an agency on spare change remaining 

from last year. 

However, what can never be expected is anything less than the full truth, as best 

as it is known. This grave situation does not need to be assisted by misleading 

statements designed to aid a political argument by any party. It’s my hope that we 

can uphold the best traditions of this Committee and rise above all of that today. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your willingness to join us in that effort. Since this 

hearing was called last Friday we’ve had a bit more clarity on some of these issues 

we have been asking your staff about for the last ten days, but I thought the public 

should hear that same information. 

VACREP180 with DISTILLER

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One last point before I conclude. Last July we held a hearing on a bill the Ranking Member and I introduced that proposed to advance fund the entire VA discretionary budget. The Administration declined to take a position on the bill, saying 

instead it needed to conduct a review first. It is obvious that no review is necessary 

given where we are today. Mr. Secretary, I sincerely hope that you are making that 

case within the Administration, and I’ll follow up with you on that point during 

questioning. 

I now recognize the Ranking Member for his statement. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael H. Michaud 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before we begin exploring how the government shutdown is affecting veterans and 

the VA, I want to acknowledge the very real consequences the lapse in appropriations has had on VA employees. I know that VA employees do not work solely for 

a paycheck. They work because they believe in helping veterans. You have done 

your job, now it is time for Congress to do its job. 

We can do this in two ways, either the Senate can take up the MILCONVA appropriation bill passed by the House, or the House can take up the clean CR bill passed 

by the Senate. I don’t care which we choose as long as we get on with re-opening 

the government with a fully funded VA. 

The VA ‘‘contingency plan’’ and ‘‘field guide’’ provided us a rough idea of the consequences of a government shutdown. Last week, we saw the immediate shutdown 

of some VA offices, such as the Inspector General. Yesterday, we saw some VBA and 

IT accounts run dry and thousands of VA employees furloughed. We know that the 

mandatory funds to pay compensation and pension benefits are scheduled to run out 

in a little over two weeks. 

We also know that furloughs and suspension of programs in other agencies affect 

veterans. Of the roughly 2.1 million Federal employees, more than 600,000 are veterans. Many of them are already, or expect to be, furloughed. Also, as programs and 

services at other agencies are disrupted, it affects VA’s ability to receive the necessary information and support to deliver veteran services. 

We know we will hear bad news today. Important VA operations have or will be 

suspended. Some veterans will not get what they are expecting, what they deserve, 

and most importantly, what they have earned. This may be a difficult conversation, 

but one we must have – openly, frankly and honestly. 

But, amidst the bad news there is some good news. With VA’s medical accounts 

under advanced appropriations, the Veterans’ Health Administration is largely unaffected by the lapse in fiscal year 2014 appropriations. All medical facilities are 

open and operating under normal status. This will continue regardless of how long 

the current government shutdown lasts. 

It is clear now, in the midst of the shutdown, that getting a vote on H.R. 813, 

as amended, ‘‘The Putting Veterans’ Funding First Act,’’ is a necessary and critical 

step in ensuring veterans’ benefits and services are not put at risk when there is 

a lapse in appropriations. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you signing a letter with me 

to The Speaker asking for H.R. 813, as amended, to be scheduled for floor action 

immediately. I encourage all members of the Committee to sign onto our letter and 

send the message that veterans should not, cannot, and will not be disadvantaged 

by party politics in the future. 

Mr. Secretary, I look forward to your testimony. With that Mr. Chairman, I yield 

back. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Corrine Brown 

Thank you, Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Michaud, for calling this hearing today. 

Thank you, Secretary Shinseki, for briefing us today on the effect on Veterans by 

this Republican Government Shutdown. 

We are currently in Day 9 of the Republican Government Shutdown. There is no 

end in sight and now the full faith and credit of the United States is being put at 

risk regarding the debt limit needing to be increased. 

I want to thank the Secretary for coming here today to brief this Committee on 

how this Republican Government Shutdown will affect our Nations veterans. 

However, it seems as though the Republican Majority has lost the focus of this 

issue: there would be no effect on veterans, claims would still be filed, veterans 

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would still be receiving the services they spilled their blood for if this Congress 

would just do its job and pass a clean funding bill for the Federal government. 

House Republicans continue to drag out this damaging shutdown by voting a cynical, piecemeal approach to funding government. This is no way to govern and no 

way to run the largest economy in the world. It’s time for House Republicans to drop 

the political games and join Democrats to bring a vote to the floor immediately to 

end the shutdown and get our government working again for the American people. 

Even the mini-veterans appropriations bill would not have fully funded the VA. 

I am appalled that the House considered a bill that only partially funded the Department of Veterans Affairs, to take one small portion of the budget to help those 

men and women who have sacrificed so much and use it as a club to hammer the 

American people over the head while you argue about the Republican Government 

Shutdown. 

The House has not considered funding: 

• the National Cemetery Administration 

• the Office in charge of Construction of VA facilities 

• Office of Inspector General 

• Grants to state veterans homes 

• Grants to state cemeteries 

We need to stop this charade and fund the entirety of veterans programs, no matter what department they are funded out of. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Eric K. Shinseki 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, Members of the House Committee 

on Veterans’ Affairs: 

The Committee invited me here today to examine the effects of the government 

lapse in appropriations on VA benefits and services provided to Veterans, their families, and survivors. It is important for you to know the following: 

• When appropriations lapsed, we had to discontinue overtime, slowing our review of benefit claims. This has led to delays for an average of 1,400 Veterans 

a day. As a result, we are no longer making the significant gains we have made 

in recent months toward eliminating the backlog in claims. 

• Yesterday, we exhausted carryover funds for Veterans Benefits Administration 

(VBA) employees. Therefore, consistent with our contingency plan, as of October 

8th, VBA furloughed more than 7,800 of its employees, half of whom are Veterans. 

• The Office of Information and Technology (OIT), as of Monday, has furloughed 

2,754 of its employees, approximately 56 percent of whom are Veterans. While 

support for existing operations continues, all improvements to our systems have 

ceased. This threatens to delay updates to the Veterans Benefits Management 

System (VBMS) that allows us to help take down the backlog and give Veterans 

quick and accurate decisions. 

• If the shutdown continues through late October, claims processing for compensation, pension, education, vocational rehabilitation, and employment benefits will be suspended due to lack of funding. Once mandatory funds are depleted at the end of this month, nearly 5,600 Veterans a day will not receive 

a decision on their disability claims. We have brought down the backlog by over 

?30 percent, or 190,000 claims since March. This lapse in funds will likely increase the backlog instead of continuing the progress. 

• If the shutdown continues into late October, November compensation payments 

to more than 3.8 million Veterans will halt. These include thousands of Veterans who have the most severe disabilities. Payments will also stop for over 

364,000 survivors and over 1,200 children receiving special benefits, such as 

children with Spina Bifida born to Vietnam Veterans and certain Korean War 

Veterans as well as children of women Veterans with birth defects. 

• In addition, should the shutdown continue into late October, pension payments 

will stop for almost 315,000 Veterans and over 202,000 surviving spouses and 

dependents. As you know, these Veterans have very low incomes and depend 

heavily upon these benefits. 

• If the shutdown continues, education benefits and living stipends under our 

??GI Bill programs will stop for over 500,000 Veterans and Service members. 

These are simply the facts. Mr. Chairman, this shutdown could end today if Congress would fully fund government operations so that VA and the rest of the Federal 

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government can get back to work. There are those who have suggested a piecemeal 

approach, to pick and choose which parts of the government to fund. This is not the 

best solution for our Veterans or our Nation. 

Veterans depend on government services beyond just those provided by VA. First, 

there are important programs and benefits that are the result of partnerships between VA and other agencies. For example, the Department of Labor (DoL) is a 

close partner with VA on Veterans jobs programs. However, the shutdown requires 

the suspension of functions of DoL’s Veterans Employment and Training Service 

(VETS). The work VA does in partnership with the Department of Housing & Urban 

development (HUD) to end Veteran homelessness has also been impacted by the 

lapse. Veteran entrepreneurs are impacted by the loss of Veteran programs at SBA, 

particularly the assistance granted through the Veterans Business Outreach Centers and the Small Business Development Centers. These organizations help Veterans start and build their small businesses, including helping them locate sources 

of capital. Veterans just leaving the military will not have access to programs intended to educate them about becoming entrepreneurs. 

Additionally, service-disabled Veteran-owned small businesses that are involved 

in status protests in any agency other than VA will not have their protests determined, thus holding up procurement actions at the issuing agency. 

Veterans, of course, are affected like other Americans by the government shutdown – more than 600,000 Veterans are employed by the Federal government, many 

others work for impacted Federal contractors, or work for other businesses that are 

suffering from the shutdown. They, like other Americans, could be impacted in other 

ways. For example, they and their families are likely feeling the effects that a shutdown has had on small business loans. 

Over the past week the Department of Veterans Affairs has worked to refine and 

implement closure plans, prepare for multiple contingencies, and communicate with 

our employees and stakeholders—all while continuing to fulfill our primary mission 

of serving Veterans and their families. 

We are working diligently to keep the delivery of services and benefits seamless 

for our Veterans to the greatest extent we can in light of the lapse in appropriations. In some areas, like healthcare delivery, there are fewer adverse effects. In 

others, such as reducing the claims backlog, we have already seen a negative impact 

due to the lapse in appropriations. 

VA’s Appropriations Lapse Contingency Plan outlines the activities being undertaken by the Department during the government shutdown. This plan is designed 

to ensure that VA can perform an orderly suspension of its programs and operations 

during the shutdown. As the shutdown is a dynamic and evolving process, we continue to evaluate our contingency plan as time passes. 

Under applicable law, VA has a limited ability to continue ‘‘excepted functions’’ 

under a lapse in appropriations to ‘‘protect life and property’’ or that are a ‘‘necessary implication’’ of functions that are funded. An example of an excepted function 

is the work performed by personnel from the Office of Information and Technology, 

who support the provision of health services at Veterans Health Administration 

(VHA) facilities. VA functions and offices not funded by advanced appropriations 

will have to operate with very few excepted employees, as set forth in detail in the 

VA shutdown planning materials available on our website. VA does have the flexibility to use a very limited amount of unexpended fiscal year 2013 funds to continue 

some offices’ operations for a limited time. For some offices, such as OIT, VBA, and 

the Office of Inspector General, those limited funds have already been exhausted 

and non-excepted employees furloughed. For those remaining, it is a day to day determination. 

Following is a brief status update from each of our Administrations and major offices. 

Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA) 

During the last six months, VBA had made significant progress in executing its 

Transformation Plan to improve the speed and accuracy of disability claims processing. Between March and September, VBA reduced the claims backlog from a high 

point of 611,000 down to 418,000 – a drop of approximately 31 percent. As of October 8th, claims processors had completed approximately 99 percent of claims over 

two years old, and nearly 81 percent of all claims pending over one year – from 

333,000 to less than 68,000 – giving Veterans who have waited the longest a decision on their claim. Most importantly, while increasing productivity, VBA also increased the quality of claims decisions. In June 2011, processing of disability claims 

was approximately 83 percent accurate. By August 2013, VBA’s three-month average for claims accuracy had risen eight percentage points to approximately 91 percent. When measuring accuracy at the individual medical issue level – which is a 

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truer measure of VA’s proficiency because it captures how well employees rate each 

condition in a Veteran’s claim – the rating accuracy is approximately 96.7 percent. 

The momentum achieved over the past six months has now stalled with the government shutdown. Since October 1st, claims production has slowed by an average 

of 1,400 per day, and it may slow further as support personnel began their furloughs on October 8th. VBA currently has enough unobligated FY 2013 funds available in its mandatory account to pay benefits and continue to process claims until 

about the end of October, assuming current year spending mirrors prior years. With 

no further appropriations, however, VBA will not be able to pay Veterans, their families or survivors on November 1st for all our benefit programs including compensation, pension, Dependence and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), fiduciary, education, 

and Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment. Quite simply, without the passage 

of appropriations soon, Veterans won’t be paid their earned benefits on November 

1st. 

On October 1st, when the lapse in appropriations began, VBA had roughly five 

days of carry over funding available in its General Operating Expense (discretionary) account for staff and operating expenses. Discretionary funding was exhausted on October 7th, requiring the furlough of over 7,800 VBA employees on 

Tuesday, October 8th, leaving 13,097 excepted and funded employees across all VBA 

programs to process claims and provide other benefits activities. 

The remaining claims processing operations and staffing have been reduced to the 

minimum levels necessary to continue mandatory payment processing. Consequently, VBA’s progress in reducing the claims inventory and backlog is now 

stalled. The duration of the shutdown is directly impacting VA’s ability to eliminate 

the backlog. 

Once the mandatory appropriations are exhausted near the end of the month, 

there will be 1,100 excepted personnel to staff VBA’s 56 Regional Offices and National Call Centers to date stamp incoming claims receipts. As a result of the exhaustion of available funding, VA will not be able to pay the on average $6.25 billion in monthly compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation benefits to over four million Veterans, Service members, and Survivors. This includes 

the following, specific impacts: 

• Over $4.5 billion in recurring monthly compensation benefits payments will not 

get paid to 3.8 million Veterans, including an estimated 433,000 service-connected 100 percent disabled Veterans. 

• Over $514 million monthly compensation benefits will not be paid to over 

360,000 surviving spouses and children of wartime service Veterans. 

• Over $304 million monthly pension benefits will not get paid to nearly 315,000 

wartime low-income Veterans who are permanently and totally disabled or who 

are over the age of 65. 

• Over $132 million monthly pension benefits will not get paid to over 200,000 

low-income Survivors. 

• No tuition, fees, or housing allowance benefits will be paid for Veteran education programs - impacting 500,000 Veterans, Service members, survivors and 

their designated beneficiary. 

• Over $65 million in monthly Survivors and Dependents Educational Assistance 

will not be paid to an estimated 60,000 eligible spouses and children of Veterans. 

• Over $42 million in Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program subsistence allowances will not be paid to 41,000 service-connected disabled Veterans. 

• All Volunteer Force Educational Assistance: Nearly $77 million in All Volunteer 

Force Educational Assistance benefits will not be paid to 35,000 Veterans and 

Active Duty personnel. 

• Over $12 million in Specially Adapted Housing and Auto Equipment Grants 

will not be provided to over 2,000 severely disabled Veterans for home and automobile adaptations. 

Even though most VBA funding is ‘mandatory’ (connected with cash payments established by eligibility for programs), almost all of the funding for VBA-administered benefits has to be approved in annual appropriations. Areas continuing to 

fully operate throughout the lapse in appropriations are the VA Home Loan Guaranty program and the self-supporting Insurance program that operates through 

trust funds. VBA Compensation & Pension and Readjustment Benefits accounts are 

entitlement accounts requiring annual appropriations from Congress. The FY 2014 

VA request of $86.1 billion included $84.4 billion to pay Compensation & Pension 

and Readjustment mandatory benefits. 

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National Cemetery Administration (NCA) 

The National Cemetery Administration has sufficient funding to continue regular 

operations through late October. After available funds are exhausted, NCA will implement its lapse in appropriations shutdown plan. Of the 1,802 NCA employees, 

1,046 will be non-excepted and subject to furlough. NCA employs the highest percentage of Veterans in the Federal workforce. Of the 1,046 non-excepted employees 

in NCA who may be furloughed, 757, approximately 72 percent, are Veterans. Many 

of them are disabled Veterans, who will also lose their disability compensation from 

VBA, if the shutdown continues. 

There will be 756 excepted employees, approximately 91 percent of whom are located in the field. Each national cemetery will conduct a reduced number of burials 

each day. This could cause some families to pay for storage of their loved ones’ remains until burials can be scheduled. Although there may be possible delays in 

scheduling internments, NCA will continue to provide services to our Veterans and 

their families during their time of need with the utmost dignity, respect and compassion. 

Administrative and maintenance operations beyond emergency or essential functions will cease until the government reopens, and this reduced support may impact 

cemetery appearance. Requests for Presidential Memorial Certificates will not be 

processed. Several burial benefits are funded from the Compensation and Pension 

account. When these mandatory funds are exhausted, NCA will not be able to provide headstones, markers, medallions and outer burial receptacles to Veterans and 

eligible family members. 

Veterans Appeals Processing 

Based on applicable legal standards, the processing of appeals will be suspended 

once funding is exhausted as of October 7th. The Board of Veterans Appeals (the 

Board) estimates that FY 2013 funds for its staff will be expended in early November, while funding for VBA’s regional offices and AMC has already been exhausted. 

Employees who process appeals at VBA’s 56 Regional Offices and the AMC have already been furloughed, and Board employees will be put into furlough status when 

remaining funds are expended. Once this funding is exhausted, all but one member 

of the Board staff will be furloughed. Hearings in Veterans’ appeals are being cancelled each week, and appeals decisions will not be issued, leading to longer wait 

times for Veterans. 

Office of Information Technology (OIT) 

The Office of Information and Technology provides critical support to VHA, VBA, 

NCA, and Central Office staff that ensures the delivery of benefits and health services to our Nations’ Veterans. 

As of Monday, October 7th, 2,754 OIT employees were furloughed. About 551 OIT 

employees are paid from a revolving fund with a capital reserve; these positions are 

fully funded for approximately 3 months. An additional 4,670 employees are excepted to provide support for healthcare delivery and for benefits determination and 

delivery, support for staff offices, and ensuring our Veterans information continues 

to be protected. This number will decrease as the shutdown continues and additional staff members are furloughed. Most, if not all, improvements to our existing 

IT systems, as well as implementations of new capabilities, are suspended. Specific 

examples include; the Veterans Benefits Management System, the Veterans Relationship Management (VRM) Initiative, the Integrated Electronic Health Record 

(iEHR) IOC 2014, the Internal Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD–10), and Personal 

Identify Verification (PIV)-only Authentication rollout. 

While these IT systems will be maintained, no new development upgrades will 

occur after October 7th. One system, VBMS, is one of the critical initiatives to reducing the backlog of disability claims over the next several years. On Monday, October 7th, all VBMS development ceased. 

Veterans Health Administration 

Advanced appropriations have allowed VHA to continue its operations with its fiscal year 2014 funding in place, with some exceptions, such as funding for medical 

research and prosthetics, and operation of the Lovell VA–DoD joint facility. Lovell 

is fully operating with all staff on excepted status. Advanced appropriations only 

apply to selected VHA accounts. 

Staff Offices 

In most VA staff offices there is a limited pool of FY 2013 funds to support a short 

period of continued operation. After this short period, the majority of the functions 

will no longer be performed as a result of the majority of the employees being nonexcepted. 

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In other offices, there are revolving fund programs that will continue to operate. 

Staff offices also have personnel who provide support to VHA and are reimbursed 

by VHA with advance appropriations. These staff will continue to work and perform 

their regular duties as ‘‘fully funded’’ staff. Finally there are some staff who will 

continue to work, due to ‘‘necessary implications’’ or ‘‘protection of life and property.’’ 

Details by staff office are provided on the VA webpage in our VA Contingency Plan, 

Advance Operation in the Absence of Appropriations. 

Summary 

While VA planned for an orderly shutdown in the event of a lapse in appropriations, a government shutdown of this scale is a new responsibility with unprecedented legal and programmatic questions. VA depends on coordination and synchronization with other Federal departments and agencies. There are functions in other 

agencies impacted by the shutdown that, in turn, impact our plan in unanticipated 

ways. Every department and agency is doing the best they can to deal with this 

evolving situation. With the predicted uncertainty that accompanies this lapse in 

appropriations, VA will do its best to keep this Committee informed. However, unforecasted impacts of the shutdown are difficult to predict. 

President Lincoln’s charge, to care for those who ‘‘shall have borne the battle,’’ remains clear and undiminished. Congress must resolve this fiscal impasse so that VA 

and our partners can fully deliver its mission of caring for and serving our Nation’s 

Veterans. 

f 

Statement For The Record 

Paralyzed Veterans of America 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, and members of the Committee, 

Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) would like to thank you for the opportunity 

to offer our views on the effect that the federal government shutdown is having and 

could potentially have on the operations of the Veterans Benefits Administration 

(VBA) and the payment of veterans benefits. As the shutdown has now stretched 

into a second week, veterans anxiously await a solution that will ensure benefits 

and services are not disrupted. Unfortunately, that prospect of a solution seems 

more and more unlikely with each passing day. 

Without question, the number one concern that has been raised by our members 

is whether or not they will receive their compensation and pension benefits at the 

end of October. Similarly, we have received some questions about payment of Dependency and Indemnity Compensation as well. Everyone has been caught off guard 

by this problem because no one seemed to realize that an authorization would be 

required in order to pay veterans benefits. While we appreciate the intent behind 

the various legislative measures that have been considered to establish this authorization during the shutdown, we must emphasize that we cannot support this method of doing business. If Congress is serious about addressing this problem, then it 

should fully fund the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its programs immediately. 

It is our understanding that many parts of the operations of VBA will be shuttered this week. While VBA retained some carryover funds to continue operations 

for a limited period of time, those funds are drying up quickly. As a result, more 

employees will be furloughed as the days and weeks progress. Interestingly, we have 

received conflicting reports as to what affect the furloughs and office closures are 

having on our own field operations. It is our understanding that some Regional Offices are all but closed while some remain at least partially open. Some of our National Service Officers (NSO) have access to federal facilities while others do not. 

Additionally, the information available to our NSO’s will be limited to what can be 

obtained from the VBA systems which remain functional during the shutdown. It 

is also more widely understood that while our NSO’s may still be working, veterans 

seeking claims assistance will be unable to come into the Regional Offices to meet 

with them. We have real concerns that given the wide-ranging feedback we have 

received from the field, it seems that VA has no clear and consistent plan for the 

Regional Offices to handle the shutdown, as well as why the veterans’ service organizations have been kept in the dark about what the plans are moving forward. 

It is our understanding that VA Call centers that provide information and assistance on a broad range of VA benefits and services will not be available. Claimants 

will thus be in danger of losing entitlement to benefits which are time sensitive. VA 

has informed us that during this period it will date stamp any mail that it receives 

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for claims purposes in order to preserve the date of claim. However, we question 

what will happen to claimants who were unable to obtain relevant information that 

would have prompted the timely submission of a claim. 

Similarly, we have serious concerns about the impact that the government shutdown will have on the process for providing Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) benefits. SAH claims require expeditious follow-up to the multiple step processes that 

are required to provide a safe environment to catastrophically disabled veterans. 

Many veterans with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) experience rapid exacerbations of their terminal illness which require appropriate modifications to their 

home to protect them from the hazards of everyday living. The role of VA employees 

who handle SAH in these cases is to evaluate the needs of the veteran and coordinate the various building codes and other related issues to facilitate the implementation of the needed home modifications as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the 

decrease in the VBA workforce as a result of the shutdown will certainly cause unnecessary delays to SAH claims that may result in severe consequences for veterans 

who need the greatest assistance. 

Meanwhile, the function of the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) 

and its widespread implementation is jeopardized by the shutdown. VBMS roll outs 

are already falling behind schedule and the furlough will further erode the progress 

of this critical VBA initiative. The incremental releases which build on the ability 

of VSO’s to better support the claims adjudication process will be delayed and will 

likely have a reverse catalytic effect to the progress that has been made. Additionally, the system, which requires significant and ongoing maintenance through the 

Information Technology (IT) management structure just to remain operational, will 

likely experience considerable down time. 

Similarly, the Stakeholder Enterprise Portal (SEP) and other IT initiatives will 

not be supported and related problems will go unresolved. SEP is used to obtain the 

status of claims and payment history. The program is user friendly when it operates 

properly, but intervention at the current stage of development is often required to 

reconcile technical issues for individual issues and to develop patches for more broad 

based problems. With IT staff that support VBA’s operations furloughed, any problems that arise with the IT support systems will simply languish, further slowing 

the ability of VBA to process claims in a timely fashion. 

Finally, what will be the long term impact on claims processing in general? The 

longer the government shutdown continues, the greater inevitable effect it will have 

on the increase in the claims and appeals backlog. This is of particular concern as 

it relates to the erosion of the progress made since April and the ability to meet 

the 2015 target set by Secretary Shinseki. The shutdown will have an impact, but 

we do not want it to become an excuse for failure to meet the stated goals. 

Ultimately, the partisan bickering and political gridlock that have put veterans’ 

benefits and services at risk is unacceptable. We cannot emphasize enough our opposition to funding the operations of the VA through short-term continuing resolutions (CRs) or other stop-gap measures, such as the partial funding measures that 

have been debated in the House of Representatives. While we recognize the fact that 

the House did in fact complete the ‘‘FY 2014 Military Construction and Veterans 

Affairs Appropriations Act’’ earlier this year, it is time for the political 

grandstanding to stop. PVA, along with our partners in The Independent Budget— 

AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, and Veterans of Foreign Wars—just last 

week called on the leadership of the House and Senate to take immediate action 

to enact the full year FY 2014 appropriations bill for the VA. 

Additionally, the activities in Congress over the last two weeks (and really for 

many years) further affirm the need to approve legislation to make the VBA and 

all other VA programs a part of advance appropriations. Advance appropriations 

have shielded VA health care from most of the harmful effects of the current government shutdown as well as prior continuing resolutions. The Independent Budget 

called on leadership last week to immediately bring H.R. 813, the ‘‘Putting Veterans 

Funding First Act,’’ to the floor for consideration, amendment and approval. We 

hope that you will continue your efforts to see this critical legislation through to 

final enactment. 

In the end, PVA, the co-authors of The Independent Budget, our partners in the 

veterans’ service organization community, and the millions of veterans that we represent will no longer tolerate Congress leveraging veterans’ health care and benefits 

to achieve unrelated political ends. The actions of Congress in the last couple of 

weeks reflect a failure of leadership. Congress’ obligation to veterans does not start 

in the eleventh hour of a national crisis; you have an obligation to pass a timely, 

sufficient budget for all veterans programs, benefits and services. 

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We appreciate the bipartisan atmosphere that this Committee has often experienced. And yet, even that has now been tarnished. It is time for this nonsense to 

stop. 

PVA thanks you once again for allowing us to submit comments for the record. 

We will continue to keep the Committee staff updated on the impact of the shutdown on VBA as well as our own operations. We would be happy to answer any 

questions that you may have. 

Information Required by Rule XI 2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives 

Pursuant to Rule XI 2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives, the following information is provided regarding federal grants and contracts. 

Fiscal Year 2013 

No federal grants or contracts received. 

Fiscal Year 2012 

No federal grants or contracts received. 

Fiscal Year 2011 

Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, administered by the Legal Services Cor- poration—National Veterans Legal Services Program— $262,787. 

f 

Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans Of America 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, and Distinguished Members of the 

Committee: 

On behalf of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), I would like to 

extend our gratitude for the opportunity to share with you our views, thoughts, and 

concerns regarding the ongoing government shutdown and its impact on the ability 

of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide benefits and services to America’s veterans. 

IAVA is the nation’s first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their supporters. Founded in 2004, 

our mission is critically important but simple – to improve the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families. With a steadily growing base of nearly 

270,000 members and supporters, we strive to help create a society that honors and 

supports veterans of all generations. 

In partnership with other veteran service organizations (VSOs), IAVA has worked 

tirelessly to see that veterans’ needs and concerns are appropriately addressed by 

the VA. IAVA has fought hard over the years to not only hold the VA accountable 

on its promises to our nation’s veterans, but also to ensure that veterans are fully 

aware of the status of operations within VA. 

Lately, however, the political climate in Washington has made doing this a very 

difficult task. Congress, VSOs, and the public have often received incomplete, inaccurate, and/or inconsistent information from the administration and the VA about 

how the government shutdown would impact veterans and VA services. These inconsistencies have left veterans confused, concerned, and dismayed. 

Since the federal government shutdown began, IAVA has fielded countless calls 

and received numerous emails, tweets, and Facebook messages from veterans all 

over the country asking about the impact of the shutdown on their benefits and 

services. We have heard from a number of veterans who rely on disability and GI 

Bill benefits and don’t know if they’ll get their next check. In fact, demand for education resources at IAVA has tripled in just a week. 

One recent call came from a female veteran who is 100% disabled with three kids 

and no savings. If she does not receive her November disability check on time, she 

worries that she will not be able to pay her rent and electric bill or even buy food 

for her family. She shared that several other veterans she knows in her own hometown are in the same situation as she is, and they all are worried about what is 

yet to come. 

Another IAVA member veteran recently relayed that he had applied for a VA 

home loan and had already received his Certificate of Eligibility and appraisal for 

the home he purchased when his mortgage lender indicated that it may not be able 

to proceed with the loan due to the government shutdown. While VA’s most updated 

version of its public guidance on the shutdown states that VA home loan processing 

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should not be impacted by a lapse in appropriations, this veteran’s story is evidence 

of a common concern we are starting to see: the impact of uncertainty and doubt 

on businesses that interact with veterans and impact their lives and livelihoods. 

Stories such as these are only the tip of the iceberg. We also hear from veterans 

who are furloughed federal government employees, veterans unsure of what a new 

wave of furloughs at VA means for services on which they rely, and veterans in the 

VA disability claims backlog who are worried that their wait will be even longer. 

In recent months, we have seen a significant and laudable reduction in the backlog, due in part to a variety of factors such as the special claims processing initiatives, veterans filing more fully developed claims with the guidance of VSO service 

officers, mandatory overtime for VA claims processors, media attention, and public 

pressure. But if the shutdown continues, we may not only see a slowdown of this 

trend, but a potential reversal of the trend. This would represent a major setback 

for the VA, for veterans, and for the country. 

The men and women who served our nation did their jobs without question and 

without delay, and those currently serving, continue to perform their duties even 

while questions about whether or not our government will default on its commitment to compensate and care for them and their families. IAVA urges Congress to 

end this standoff and will restore funding to the government so that it can properly 

and fully serve our nation’s veteran population. 

Veterans are hurting during the shutdown. They need the shutdown to end so 

they can receive and benefit from the services and support they have earned. But 

until Congress can re-open the government, our veterans deserve clear, reliable, and 

accurate information. 

Mr. Chairman, IAVA again appreciates the opportunity to offer our views on this 

important topic, and we look forward to continuing to work with each of you, your 

staff, and this Committee to continue to improve the lives of veterans and their families. 

Thank you for your time and attention. 

f 

AMVETS 

Introduction 

Distinguished members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, it is my pleasure, on behalf of AMVETS, to offer this testimony outlining our questions and concerns related to the effects on the government shutdown on VA benefits and services 

to veterans. 

I would like to begin today by commending the committee for all of its work on 

behalf of American veterans everywhere, especially its efforts to improve efficiencies 

by eliminating redundant and/or counterproductive programs and its unwavering 

commitment to all of the men and women whose job it is to protect and defend this 

country. 

As the United States absorbs the aftereffects of more than a decade of continuous 

war and in the face of the planned draw-down of military personnel, the VA has 

been, and will continue to be, severely stressed for the foreseeable future. Nothing 

is more important for our veterans than adequately meeting their physical/mental 

health care needs and the accurate and efficient processing of their disability claims. 

Thanks to improvements in battlefield medicine, swift triage, aeromedical evacuations and trauma surgery, more combat-wounded than ever before are surviving 

horrific wounds and will be applying for the benefits they were promised and earned 

on the battlefield. Your committee has a responsibility to ensure that the VA and 

our nation live up to the obligations imposed by the sacrifices of our veterans. 

It is encouraging to acknowledge at this time that, despite the extraordinary sacrifices being asked of our men and women in uniform, the best and the brightest 

continue to step forward to answer the call of our nation in its time of need. I know 

that each of you is aware of, and appreciates, the numerous issues of importance 

facing our military members, veterans, retirees, families, and survivors. 

Background 

In the early 1980s, Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti pointed out that the AntiDeficiency Act, which was originally enacted in 1884, required government agencies 

to close if their funding expired. This legislation is one of the major laws that gives 

Congress constitutional control over public funds. All funding lapses since the 80’s, 

have resulted in actual government shutdowns, although most of them shutdowns 

were of very limited duration. The most significant government shutdown to date 

came during the Clinton Administration and lasted 21 days in 1996. 

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As mentioned above, this current government shutdown is not a situation without 

precedence, even excluding the shutdown in 1996. Continuing with our historical 

look back, we find that since 1976, there have actually been 17 occasions when Congress failed to meet its annual funding deadline, six of which took place in the 

1970s. Not all of these funding gaps actually lead to physical shutdowns. 

Comments 

The focus of the remainder of my remarks will pertain to the current situation 

we find ourselves in, the second government shutdown in 17 years and its effects 

on VA. And even though the underlying cause of these shutdowns, the inability of 

Congress and the president to agree on a spending bill, have a lot in common, there 

are also many differences. The result, not surprisingly, is that there is a lot of confusion, frustration and outright hostility being experienced, not only by American Veterans and federal employees, but also by ordinary citizens and even government decision-makers. 

It goes without saying, that the government we have today is not the same as 

the one we had in 1996, thanks to technology and government overhauls, etc., so 

we cannot depend on previous experience as a guide to what may or may not happen. This unknown factor is creating undue fear and anxiety for the millions of 

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American Veterans receiving a myriad of VA services and benefits and this is unacceptable to AMVETS and the larger veteran’s community. 

Since anything that effects VA has cascading effects on all VA stakeholders, 

AMVETS is seeking clear guidance to share with our members as this shutdown 

continues. Currently, AMVETS National Service Officers and the AMVETS National 

Service Director’s office are being inundated with urgent requests for information 

from veterans all around the country who are concerned that their earned benefits 

may lapse as a result of the government shutdown. It must not be forgotten that 

for many veterans, especially the most vulnerable, their VA benefits may be their 

sole source of income. Additionally, veterans want to know: 

• if they’ll be able to file new claims; • if they’ll be able to file appeals; • whether they’ll be able to check the status of a pending claim or appeal; • what will happen to their G.I. Bill benefit payments; • if NCA interments will continue in a timely manner; • why they are being prevented from visiting monuments dedicated to their own 

service and sacrifice; • what effect the shutdown will have on the backlog; • will disabled veterans continue to receive their compensation or pension benefits; • whether or not they’ll be able to meet with Service Officers in VA Regional Offices; • how will the furloughing of 2,754 Office of Information Technology employees 

and contractors impact the development of important VA programs such as, 

VBMS, Data2Data (D2D), DBQ’s (Disability Benefit Questionnaires), and VBMS 

Calculators; • what are the long-term ramifications of an extended shutdown; and • for those with security clearances, there are concerns about possible negative 

effects during their next background check to renew their clearance if they are 

not paid in a timely manner. 

Concerning meeting Secretary Shinseki’s goal of eliminating the backlog by 2015, 

back of the envelope calculations show that since the beginning of calendar year 

2013, VA has been reducing the backlog by an average of 5,420 claims a week. With 

98 weeks left until the end of FY15 if the VA is able to continue reducing the backlog at the same rate, VA will have successfully eliminated the backlog by 2015. Additional calculations show that the VA has a buffer of 112,000 claims if they continue reducing the backlog at the current rate; however, every week that the shutdown continues reduces the VA’s ability to meet the Secretary Shinseki’s goal by 

2015. 

Of major concern to AMVETS is the information coming out of VA indicating that 

it may not have enough money to pay disability claims and pension payments beyond the end of October, which would drastically affect some 3.6 million veterans. 

Closing 

I would like to conclude this testimony, by noting for the record, that AMVETS 

fully supports both Secretary Shinseki and Under Secretary for Benefits Hickey. 

Both of these leaders have struggled to fulfill their obligations to their fellow veterans thanks to the antiquated civil service system current in place. While we appreciate that this system, and its attendant protections, was originally established 

to rightly protect against patronage, worker exploitation, and political manipulation. 

But instead of protecting the best employees and creating an environment in which 

excellence can thrive, civil service protections now serve to lock the worst employees 

into place, making it virtually impossible for managers to fire poor performers. Neither VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, nor any future VA secretary, can be fully expected 

to fix a system in which they are unable to fire bad employees and reward good employees based on merit (instead of tenure). We need to give the VA’s leadership the 

tools they need to fix the system. 

This completes my statement at this time; thank you for the opportunity to offer 

our remarks on this critical issue. 

f 

Veterans of Foreign Wars of The United States 

MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE: 

On behalf of the men and women of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United 

States (VFW) and our Auxiliaries, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to 

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present our views on the effects of the government shutdown on the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and the VFW’s ability to provide service officer assistance 

to veterans and active duty servicemembers. 

Now in the second week of the government shutdown, veterans are raising concerns about receiving compensation, pension and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation at the end of October. We have asked our membership to call and write 

their members of Congress to tell them to pass a fully funded budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Included in this call-to-action is a request to pass 

H.R. 813 and S. 932 to ensure that VA will be fully funded through Advance Appropriations in the future. 

In conversations with VA personnel and VFW service officers, the effectiveness of 

our service officers to represent veterans will be greatly impaired. VA has informed 

the VFW that all service officers, whose offices reside inside the Regional Offices 

(RO), will continue to have access to their offices to make phone calls and to review 

claims, but veterans will not be allowed into the buildings for face-to-face meetings. 

As the ROs begin closing, VFW service officers will have to reschedule meetings offsite to continue to assist veterans. Even if all service officers are granted access, 

there will be a loss of productivity in taking claims, counseling veterans and, responding to calls and reviewing decisions prior to promulgation. 

Our service officers are working to reschedule appointments at locations that 

range from local Vet Centers to VFW Posts. Aside from the logistics of changing 

these meeting locations, service officers who do not have access to encrypted laptop 

computers will have to rely on filing paper claims as opposed to helping veterans 

file claims electronically. This is counterproductive to the desire of VA to move to 

an all-electronic claims process. 

Currently, our service officers are in their offices to take calls from veterans, allowing for timely responses to questions and concerns. With our service officers rescheduling meetings outside the office, those calls will go to voicemail, leaving our 

service officers trying to reconnect with the veterans at a later time. 

The Transition Assistance Program (TAP) operates on military installations 

around the country. It is a perfect opportunity for our service officers who are on 

or near a military installation to introduce themselves to service members and describe how we can assist them in filing a claim. TAP operations are halted by the 

shutdown at most locations where VFW pre-discharge counselors work. Currently, 

our service officers at military instillations are working from their usual worksites 

after being denied access early on. Our service officer at Joint Base Lewis-McCord, 

Wa, will be relocated to the Veterans Home at American Lake VA Hospital if the 

shutdown continues beyond this week. At some of our pre-discharge locations, the 

intake sites are closed, so our service officers are either faxing claims to our Department service officer or hand delivering claims to the RO for a date stamp. The VFW 

also predicts a fall off of service members and veterans who will reach out to us 

because weekly TAP classes are being disrupted. 

It is our understanding that the Board of Veterans Appeals is operating day-today. Once this office closes, our service officers who assist at the Board will no 

longer have access to the building and their work - again, slowing the claims process 

and denying veterans of their disability and pension claims decisions and appeal denials. 

These are the known setbacks of the government shutdown on the everyday work 

the VFW conducts on behalf of veterans, and the partial impact the shutdown will 

have on veterans and VA. It is time to stop leveraging veterans against larger political agendas. Partial funding measures or short-term Continuing Resolutions will 

only continue to adversely affect the care and benefits veterans have earned. So 

again, the VFW asks Congress to pass a full-year Fiscal Year 2014 appropriations 

bill without delay, and pass H.R. 813 and S. 932 to ensure veteran programs and 

services are not disrupted in the future. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for allowing the VFW to submit our views for the 

record. We will continue to inform your Committee of the impact this shutdown has 

on our daily operations and the veterans we serve. 

Information Required by Rule XI2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives 

Pursuant to Rule XI2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives, VFW has not received 

any federal grants in Fiscal Year 2013, nor has it received any federal grants in 

the two previous Fiscal Years. 

Æ 

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