Digging into the Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act | MOAA Headlines

And now, headlines from the Uniformed Services community presented by the Military Officers Association of America

According to a report released by the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon falls short of its goal to fund 90% of its barracks maintenance needs, instead funding only 80%

The report also indicates officials have not, quote, fully determined the risks to its mission and to the quality of life of its personnel as a result of not meeting its funding goal, end quote

It identifies challenges in hiring maintenance workers, especially in remote locations, competition

from the private sector, and the effects of recent workforce reductions. GAO issued 13 recommendations to the Pentagon and the individual services to identify risks

to mission and quality of life due to underfunding maintenance, to determine critical shortages

in maintenance workforce across installations, and to strengthen oversight of maintenance programs

To see the full report, visit GAO.gov. USAA announced their National Military Monument, located next to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington

D.C., will be in place through Veterans Day this year. The monument displays the names of 41 million Americans who have served in uniform over

the course of the nation's 250-year history that have been pulled from several historical databases

This monument is absolutely incredible. It has names of every single veteran who have ever served in our country My husband family and my family we have service members that go back to the American Revolution

and they are all represented here on this display. I'm looking up eight names today

So three in my immediate family, I've got two brother-in-laws that served, and then for a friend of mine, I'm looking up two names

And yourself. And myself as well, yes. How did it feel to see the names? It's exciting

It's kind of, I mean, you realize that your name and your service has been etched in history for quite some time

So this is, and the way it looks on the memorial gives the impression that it's actually etched and sewn

So it looks more realistic than you would imagine in person. I've never seen anything like this for a monument, that it doesn't just honor those who were fallen or lost in our wars

but, you know, everyone who has served and honoring the service of every single person who has dedicated themselves to our country

And I think that's what's really incredible about this monument. As the Congressional summer recess winds down and legislators return to Washington

MOA leaders sat down to discuss the Take Care of America's Veterans Act, to examine some misconceptions about the bill

and to outline why this legislation is a positive development for veterans, service members, and their families

It's incredibly unique, right? Over 60 pieces of legislation covering all kinds of things, MOA priorities from before

but 60 pieces of legislation that have over time had various levels of bipartisan support bicameral support but each individual bill on its own has never really made it across the finish line despite its support

And so now you have this opportunity where they're all in one bill, over 60 things in

one bill, and so MOA took its time to look at it. As you said, it is incredibly packed with really, really great things for the veteran

community, for the survivor community, for families, things like the Richard Starr Act

care of those combat wounded folks that we all have been, you know, all across the

community have been advocating for for over nine years, right? All these things

are in one package. So when you look at all that, even though it took us some

time, it is a unique point in time, it is a unique opportunity to take care of so

many great things for veterans across the community. So when MOA looked at that, of course, at the end after all of our ysis we said, how do you not support

this? How do you not get behind the amount of goodness that we can do for entire veteran community

The main point of contention in the veterans community is how the bill is paid for and

whether codifying changes to the VA's disability rating schedule sets a harmful precedent

First of all, if it was only one or two of these 60 kinds of pieces of legislation, MOA

would never have said, yes, let's make a change and let's allow this pay for to happen in

these changes in disability ratings. But we're not talking about one or two things

We're talking about over 60 things that are lumped together. We normally wouldn like the Congress directing how disability changes take place let that work go on in the medical community and the VA But in this case given all those facts and the opportunity for us

to direct those changes and make sure that if these sort of inevitable changes from the VA are

going to take place, we can capture those savings and put them back in the veteran community

that's what made the pay for, you know, a little bit more palatable for us. Not as a continuing

thing, not as a precedence. The folks who have decided not to support this bill have said

that this is taking away benefits from future veterans. When you look at what they're advocating for, what they're saying is, we don't want to see

a precedence. We don't want to see a precedence either. But you don't make decisions in a legislative environment waiting for two things to happen

One, that it's going to be perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. So you don't wait for perfect to happen if you want to see things get done in Washington

The second part of that discussion is the future veteran argument I don't really buy

because what I say is not doing something in action to make it better for them is not helping them either, right

And so this idea that you're closing the door to future veterans I think is a false argument

The argument should be that you're making opportunity for future veterans to get things that they currently wouldn't have

and their families and their survivors to get things that they currently wouldn't have. But if you do nothing, if all you do is fight the TACAVA bill and you have inaction, they don't get anything

I guarantee you they don't get anything. To see the full conversation and to catch up on news from around the uniformed services

community, visit MOA.org