Fix the economy by fixing veterans first

If the congress really wanted to fix the economy, aside from the infrastructure and turning this country green, they could start with one very urgent "social program" no Republican in their right mind would ever complain about. That's taking care of the veterans. With over 800,000 claims tied up and over 300,000 on appeal, that means veterans are waiting for care but it also means they are waiting for money so they can pay their bills and support their families. They need to face the fact that sooner or later, most of these claims will be approved and very few will be found to be fraudulent.

VA Compensation Tables
Veteran Alone
30% $376
40% $541
50% $770
60% $974
70% $1,228
80% $1,427
90% $1,604
100% $2,673

Take the backlogged claims and approve all of them at 50% that way you put food in their stomachs and help them pay the rent or mortgage. Review them afterward to either increase or decrease the compensation. Make sure they fully understand that if their claim was fraudulent, then they will be prosecuted plus forced to repay. The VA is supposedly already hiring more claims processors and this will free up the pile to allow them to fully review claims that were pushed through, give them ample time to get the information and documentation they need and actually help veterans with their claims instead of ending up acting as if they are against the veteran. Sorry folks but this is the way the VA is viewed by anyone filing a claim. They feel as if the VA is out to turn them down and make them just go away.

I'm sure they can come up with some kind of coding system that will flag these expedited claims and assist doctors in either proving or disproving claims. They need to listen to doctors considering they are paid by the VA and they were trained by the VA to know what they are doing.

There were some experts in the past that suggested pushing through the claims to free up the backlog but it seems to me we have a much better reason now. Stop and think about the way the economy is and how hard it is to get a job for civilians. It's even harder for veterans, believe it or not, and almost impossible if they happen to be disabled on top of that.

We have National Guards troops coming back to job losses plus the employers that are hiring unwilling to even think of hiring them because of the chance they will be redeployed again. Toss in a disabled National Guards combat veteran and then try to tell them why they have no money to pay their bills. Won't be an easy task at the same time they've been told this is a grateful nation.

As for veteran that can work, put them to work on all of these massive infrastructure projects. Give companies that hire them a better chance of competing for contracts. Give a company owned by one a better chance than that. Then maybe, just maybe, we can do the right thing for a change.