Rep. Kelly Demands Obama Administration Hold VA Accountable for Failing Nation’s Veterans
House passes bill co-sponsored by Rep. Kelly to restore accountability amidst Veterans Affairs scandal
WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives today in support of H.R. 4031, the Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014, of which he is an original co-sponsor. The legislation would give the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) the necessary authority to terminate the employment of negligent VA officials whose performance the Secretary believes warrants removal. The House passed the bill this evening by a bipartisan vote of 390-33.
Highlights of Rep. Kelly’s floor remarks:
“When I first got here, people said, ‘Kelly, you expect the government to work as a business.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not true, because there’s no way any business could work as the government works.”
“This bill is a commonsense way of taking care of people who don’t perform at a level that’s expected. The taxpayers, the citizens of this country, should expect nothing less. And to be constantly told that ‘you can’t touch these folks,’ even if they perform so badly… Instead of doing that, we give them a bonus. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Accountability is absolutely needed at this time. We give people authority; we give people responsibility. When they don’t do their job, they need to be held accountable for it. I represent not only the state of Pennsylvania, but [there are] over million Pennsylvanians who are veterans. If we can’t fix this now, with a commonsense approach, then my goodness, what are we doing on the floor of this great house? It just makes sense. … It’s long overdue — it needs to be done now.”
NOTE: Rep. Kelly is the original sponsor of a similar piece of legislation, the Government Employee Accountability Act, which would grant all federal agencies the power to fire reckless Senior Executive Service (SES) employees on the spot, or place them on “investigative leave” without pay. The legislation was passed by the House of Representatives on August 1, 2013, as part of H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act, by a bipartisan vote of 239-176.
On April 30, 2014, the House passed H.R. 4486, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015, which included report language successfully inserted by Rep. Kelly requiring the VA to provide a full status report by July 1, 2014, on actions taken to remedy the severe problems surrounding the leasing process for the Butler, PA Health Care Center as detailed in a recent report by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG). Also included in the bill was an amendment co-sponsored by Rep. Kelly to ban performance bonuses for VA Senior Executive Service employees.
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