Veterans haven't received GI Bill benefits for months due to ongoing IT issues at VA

[Gothmog]

This is a disgrace https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/veterans-haven-t-receive-gi-bill-benefits-months-due-ongoing-n934696

Te Department of Veterans Affairs is suffering from a series of information technology glitches that has caused GI Bill benefit payments covering education and housing to be delayed or — in the case of Roundtree — never be delivered.
"I’m about to lose everything that I own and become homeless," Roundtree said. "I don’t want to be that veteran on the street begging for change because I haven’t received what I was promised."

Without the GI Bill's housing stipend, Roundtree was kicked out of his apartment and is now living on his sister's couch, miles from school, where he feels like a burden on his family. The new living situation required him to move all his belongings into a storage container, which he can no longer afford. Now all of his possessions are in danger of being auctioned off by the storage facility.

"I’m about to lose everything that I own and become homeless. I don’t want to be that veteran on the street begging for change because I haven’t received what I was promised."

Roundtree said that because of his extremely strained finances, he is forced to choose between spending money on public transportation to get to his marketing classes or buying food — not both. At the end of the day, the veteran said he often makes himself go to sleep hungry.

[SummerSnow]

1. VA secretary has begun planning budget cuts requested by Trump

By NIKKI WENTLING | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: November 9, 2018

WASHINGTON – Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie said Friday that he has begun forming a plan to cut the agency’s budget as President Donald Trump requested during a Cabinet meeting last month.

But Wilkie refused to go into specifics about his thoughts on reducing the VA’s budget, saying he had yet to share them with Trump.

“I have been asked to offer ideas,” Wilkie said during a lunch-time speech at the National Press Club. “I can’t tell you because I haven’t presented it to the president.”

Trump made the budget request of each secretary in his Cabinet during an October meeting, citing an increase in spending in his first two years as president. He told Cabinet secretaries to “get rid of the fat” and suggested the cuts could be as much as 5 percent of each department's budget.

https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/va-secretary-has-begun-planning-budget-cuts-requested-by-trump-1.556017

*he loves the troops?

[DVRacer]

2. Real issue

My son in college gets Chapter 35 due to me being 100%. He is supposed to get $1200 a month this pay period $200 was deposited. He called and all they said “we know that’s the wrong amount and we are working on it”. He is not alone on campus many are struggling to cover living expenses and eat.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. K&R this looks like a step toward "privitizing" the VA to disrupt our medical benefits.

[R B Garr]

4. What a travesty. This should be a constant leading

story on all the networks. Outrageous.

[Ohiogal]

6. Absolutely.

[NewJeffCT]

5. so much winning

i'm tired of it