Vetrans get the shaft from this administration.

[Jim O'Bryan]

I was at the announcement today, that Congressman Dennis Kucinich is now looking into the massive backlog of Veteran benefits, and non-payment of these benefits since the job was privatized and given to the highest bidder Lockheed Martin."

Since taking over payments for disability have fallen as much as two years behind, leaving as many as 50,000 veterans in a bad way financially every year.



Congressman Kucinich holds up a copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, talking about as much as $40,000 in benefits if you sign up for the armed services. To which he asked, "Why would they believe this when we do not keep our promises to our veterans?" Next to the Congressman is Sgt. Major Rudolph Smalls. Sgt Smalls was permanetly injured from his two tours of duty in Korea, and one tour in Vietnam. What should have taken 60 days went on for over 6 months!


The letter from the Congressman...


December 3, 2007


The Honorable Henry A. Waxman, Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Waxman:

I write to request an investigation into the causes for the continuing delay in the distribution of federal benefits to disabled retired veterans who were injured in combat or hazardous duty. Lockheed Martin processes all military retired and annuitant pay for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), the federal agency responsible for delivering such benefits to veterans. This investigation should examine the role of Lockheed Martin in perpetuating the delay.

Congress created new benefits for combat-related disabled veterans when it entitled certain veterans to receive both Combat Related Special Compensation (CRSC)</l%20>[1] and Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP)</l%20>[2] beginning in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

By September, 2006, a backlog existed of 133,000 cases involving veterans potentially eligible for the new benefit. 

Lockheed agreed to eliminate the backlog and deliver the federally mandated benefits by September 2007.</l%20>[3] By April 2007, Lockheed needed an additional 5 or 6 weeks beyond the initial target date of September 2007.</l%20>[4] But by August 2007, Lockheed had failed to meet the extended deadline. It reported that it had completed 98,000, or 75% of the cases and promised that the remaining cases would be complete by November 15, 2007.</l%20>[5] However, by November 2007, Lockheed had in fact only reviewed the cases of 84,300, or 64% of the original pool of 133,000 veterans. 

At the current time, over five years since Congress created the benefit, tens of thousands of eligible veterans have still not received their benefits, and the number may be growing. New cases may be accumulating at a rate of 1,200</l%20>[6]-2,500</l%20>[7] per month according to DFAS. Thus, another 16,800 to 35,000 cases may have accumulated since Lockheed had set its first unmet deadline.

Reportedly, Lockheed had briefed three high ranking officials in DFAS and the VA in a way that led all three to understand the magnitude of the backlog to be considerably smaller than it actually was. The truth was discovered only when non-Lockheed DFAS senior executive, Lee Krushinski “sat down with everybody and really went through the numbers, drilling into them.â€Â