A Truly Testy House VA Committee Hearing

Tuesday’s House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on veterans benefits claims processing lasted longer than “Gone With The Wind” -- five hours from start to finish  (interrupted by a recess for a vote)  -- and by the end, Ranking Member Bob Filner, D-Calif., had become more than a bit irked.

Allison Hickey, VA undersecretary for benefits, told the hearing that the VA had submitted to the committee a “strategic plan” to scan billions of pages of paper veterans records, but it turned out that the staff had received only a PowerPoint presentation lacking details.

Filner bellowed, “This is not a strategic plan…where’s the plan?” Hickey said she had the details in a Word document, but did not bring that document to the hearing.

Filner fired back, “Why don’t you have it here?”

Hickey promised to send him the plan, which includes hiring a private sector vendor to scan the heap of paper records for veterans going back to The Big One.

I’d like a copy of the plan too.