Tom Waring, the Wire
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-13th dist.) was outraged after the release of a report by the Office of Inspector General on mismanagement at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ benefits office in Philadelphia.
The report revealed that there were about 31,000 inquiries that went unanswered for an average of 312 days.
In addition, there were overpayments of about $2.2 million, along with unprocessed mail and errors on claim forms.
“I am still in shock after reading the OIG report this morning,” Boyle said upon its release. “This is a sad day for Philadelphia. It is unthinkable that this level of duplicity, mismanagement and corruption happened at an agency whose first priority should have been to help our nation’s heroes. Instead, they systemically lied, hid and manipulated their employees to save their own skin. This is a disgrace to Philadelphia and the entire country. I hope we can learn from this incredible miscarriage of trust and justice so that it will never happen again.”
The office is located in the city’s Germantown neighborhood. No employees were individually faulted in the report.
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Meanwhile, Boyle is criticizing congressional Republicans for what he sees as favoring special interests over hard-working families during the first 100 days of the 114th Congress.
As an example, he pointed to a House vote to defund programs that could have led to the deportation of 700,000 so-called “dreamers,” those young people who were brought to the United States illegally.
“It is long past time for Republicans to stop empowering the special interests on the backs of hard-working American families,” Boyle said. “Democrats believe in making it easier to buy a home, easier to send a kid to college, and easier to have a secure and enjoyable retirement. I will continue to stand for the hard-working people of Pennsylvania, and fight for a bright future of opportunity and prosperity for every American — not just the wealthy and well connected.”
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On Equal Pay Day, Brendan Boyle demanded that more be done to close the wage gap between women and men, including passage of the critical Paycheck Fairness Act.
Equal Pay Day symbolizes when, more than three months into the year, women’s wages catch up to what men were paid in the previous year.
The National Women’s Law Center claims that women in Pennsylvania earn 76 cents for every dollar earned by men. Nationally, the figure is 78 percent.
The gap has been closing since 1960, but the NWLC said it won’t completely close until 2058.
“This is completely unacceptable,” Boyle said. “Today, women make up about half of the workforce yet on average they are still being paid less than men. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work. While women’s role in our economy has changed dramatically, America’s workplaces have simply not kept up.”
Opponents of the bill discount the figure, pointing out that studies do not consider variables such as education level, total hours worked, type of work and job tenure.
