Wednesday, February 20, 2013

THE REAL NATIONAL DEBT




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In a segment that aired on Tuesday's episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, the host highlighted the problems with the growing backlog of Veterans Administration (VA) claims. It has gotten worse to the point that waiting over a year is a best case scenario.

This backlog stretches as far back as veterans who served in the Vietnam War. Even more shocking is that VA employee who is an Air Force Veteran and her spouse is a Marine Veteran has not had their respective claims addressed by the entity that hired her.

The attention to this backlog was brought to the attention by an article in Esquire magazine where they interviewed the Navy SEAL that shot bin Laden and the problems he is having navigating the VA bureaucracy to claim his benefits.

The SEAL, whose identity is being concealed for obvious reasons, met with members of Congress on the same day President Obama delivered his State of The Union Address. The purpose of the meeting with members of Congress was to discuss how to solve these problems of the mounting VA backlog.

Here is my solution to solve the backlog of VA claims:

We have an unemployment rate in the high 7's. We have this backlog of VA claims.

Let's hire people to handle the massive backlog of VA claims. It will do two things: help lower our unemployment rate AND address the problems of the VA backlog.
 
Our combat operations in Afghanistan will be winding down soon, but that will not mean that we will not stop paying for the cost of battle.

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