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Thursday, November 15, 2018

Veterans College Bills part of the broken deal still

UPDATE 11/20, 2018

Veterans Affairs unexpectedly canceled overtime work to address GI Bill claim backlog


UPDATE: Can someone please update POTUS on what has happened to the GI Bill? This is from Stars and Stripes
Trump also said his administration has improved access to education benefits for veterans. 
Read the rest for yourself. It is too depressing to know the rest of the story.

It appears that reporters forgot how to LOOK UP WHAT THEY ALREADY REPORTED ON!

Veterans Affairs official reassigned after House hearing over delayed GI Bill benefits


NBC News
By Phil McCausland
November 14, 2018

A House committee will hear testimony Thursday from Department of Veterans Affairs officials over delayed GI Bill payments potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of veterans. NBC News reported Sunday that computer problems at VA have caused GI Bill benefit payments covering education and housing to be delayed for months or never be delivered, forcing some veterans to face debt or even homelessness.

On Wednesday, one of the key witnesses called to testify from VA was reassigned by the federal agency to a regional office in Houston, multiple officials told NBC News.

Robert Worley, executive director of Education Service of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), based in Washington, has been appointed to serve as the executive director of the VBA’s Houston regional office, according to two sources close to the VA and an email reviewed by NBC News.

Molly Jenkins, a spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, confirmed Thursday that Worley would be departing his current position to lead the VBA office in Houston.
read more here

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Well, that is the way NBC reported it.  It turns out that way back in 2008, there was another report about President Bush signing the GI Bill too. In that report the "overhaul" was a long time coming.
"And, for the first time since the Vietnam War, there will be a completely free veterans' education benefit program that pay enough to fully cover the cost of getting a four-year college degree."

According to followup reports, it was going to cost and additional $100 billion over the following ten years. There were reports that "state by state benefits"were not consistent. 

By 2009, a famous student named Clay Hunt, was among those waiting for checks to pay tuition and housing, so while attending Loyola, he used $4,000 on his credit card, while the school was owed $6,000 for tuition and he owed $1,700 for housing and books.

You may remember the name Clay Hunt because Congress passed a bill in his name. The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act, because that is how his story ended. President Obama signed that one in 2015.

Back to the GI Bill, in 2009, the VA was looking for a contractor to help process claims. In 2011, 55,000 veterans were waiting for their claims, and history was repeated all over again. And in 2012, more of the same.

Senator Bernie Sanders was trying to get answers on if anyone bothered to figure out how to pay for the benefits they voted to deliver on.

Just as reporters seem think that forgiveness of Student Loans for totally disabled veterans is something new, it isn't, they seem to have forgotten that nothing that veterans face is new at all, even though it may be "new news" to reporters.

In 2015, benefits were cut for a disabled veteran in Denver, and then he was given a list of homeless shelters in the area. Why? Because he was attending gunsmith classes. No one told that before he moved into Denver to start school.

Oh, but it got worse because in 2016, the Senate voted to cut the benefits, they were still having a hard time paying out in the first place.


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