The bill, the Andrew Connolly Veterans’ Housing Act, extends the authority of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide specially adapted housing assistance to individuals residing temporarily in house owned by a family member for a period of five years, ending in 2016. Without the reauthorization, the program will end this year.

Braley named the bill after Dubuque veteran Andrew Connolly, who traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to provide testimony on why the program should be extended.

“Today I am praying for all soldiers and veterans, that they may have the support and dignity they deserve, without having to jump through hoops, or have a friend in politics,” Connolly said during his testimony.

During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Braley said that Connolly’s personal story struck a major nerve with everyone participating in the subcommittee hearing.

“There were representatives at the table testifying with Andrew from AmVets, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans associations. These are people who testify regularly in front of Congressional hearings. You should have seen the looks on their faces as they listened and reacted to Andrew’s testimony,” Braley told The Iowa Independent.

“Based on my observations, there was widespread support for extending the program, based on his compelling testimony.”

There is currently no cost estimate associated with the extension of the veterans’ housing program.

“Based on my own personal observations of the impact of this program on deserving families like Andrew and Jenny Connolly,” Braley said, “this is one cost that American taxpayers should never be afraid of incurring.”

[Y]ou have a manual out there telling our veterans stuff like “are you really of value to your community?” You know, encouraging them to commit suicide.

“Your Life, Your Choice,” does not contain the phrase “are you really of value to your community?” or anything resembling it, really. But Steele said this on Fox News, which ran a really disgraceful “expose” on the report based on an interview with a bitter Bush administration official, so he didn’t get called on it.

Jed Lewison does a good job of shredding an argument that made the rounds on Fox News all weekend: that the VA is handing out a “death book” telling veterans to kill themselves.

The book itself is subtitled “How to Prepare a Living Will.” Fox News Sunday gave a full airing to the strange spin of Jim Towey, a disgruntled former Bush administration employee.

My problem with the document, Chris, is that the author of it is a proponent of assisted suicide. He’s way out there on that issue. And the VA has been using this; a new directive just came out in July urging providers to refer patients to it. so in my view, there should be a balanced treatment. And this is a slippery slope that kind of makes people — when you look at the document, it makes people feel like they’re a burden and that they should do the decent thing and die.

Where to start? First of all, the book has six co-authors. Towey claims that Dr. Robert Pearlman was the primary author, and he was one of more than a dozen doctors who signed a 1996 amicus brief supporting, with limitations, the right of “dying patients” to assisted suicide. Towey claims that the book “makes people feel like they’re a burden,” when almost every reference in the book to “burdens” is about patients saving their families from the “burden” of wondering what the patients might have wanted as they lay in vegetative states. The other references look more like this:

And what does it say about assisted suicide?

Nonetheless, all it took was an article and a Fox News appearance for one man to scare the VA into pulling this material.

An earlier draft had indicated that that funding had been eliminated, as I reported a few hours ago.

Mea culpa.

Responding to the Bush administration’s recent decision to privatize portions of the new G.I. Bill, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner (D-Calif.) blasted the VA on Thursday, saying the outsourcing plan will end in “disaster.”

The VA stirred up a hornets’ nest last month, when its plan to contract outside the agency for a computer system to screen claims under the newly expanded veterans education benefit was revealed. Administration officials say the outsourcing is needed to meet the Aug. 1, 2009, deadline for installing the new program. But, appearing before a House panel Thursday, some of those same officials said they know almost nothing about how the system will work and what it might cost.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Keith Pedigo, a VA associate deputy undersecretary, told members of the House VA Economic Opportunity Subcommittee that the agency has given potential bidders “the basic requirements,” but indicated the VA would have no details about the IT program until the contract is awarded later this month.

Asked about costs, Pedigo had no idea; asked which companies are in the running, he declined to say; asked about penalties if the system fails, he said the companies would be proposing those themselves; asked about a back-up plan, he said only that it’s in the works, but “not fully developed.”

With the deadline inching closer, the absence of a strategy riled some committee members, particularly the pugnacious Filner, who made headlines last year over an altercation with an airport employee.

“This is incredible,” Filner said. “You don’t know what you get. You don’t know what it costs. You don’t know what happens if it fails. What are you getting us into here?”

Later, Filner told Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), the subcommittee chairwomen, “This is going to be a disaster, madam chair.”

Maybe a disaster — but not a surprise. The VA’s outsourcing strategy is just the latest in a long series of steps taken by the Bush administration to privatize tasks once performed by government employees. The trend has included the shifting of billions of dollars in battlefield responsibilities to war contractors, the transfer of seniors’ health coverage from Medicare to private insurers and a high-profile — but failed — attempt to establish private savings plans under Social Security.

In each case, the administration has claimed that the private sector would be more efficient, thus saving taxpayer dollars. “Contracting for an IT solution is something that’s done in government all the time,” Pedigo argued Thursday.

But critics have blasted the strategy as a giveaway to industry at the expense of taxpayers. “This is a government function,” Filner said of the G.I. Bill computer system, “and it should continue to be a government function.”

The California Democrat pointed to a host of reasons that VA employees are better suited than contractors for the job. For example, he said, they have experience with DoD forms and databases; they’re trained to process appeals; and they have a history of working with the various branches of the armed services.

“Your contractor’s going to have to figure all that out,” he said.

Some veterans advocates agree. Last month, The American Legion passed resolutions opposing the VA’s intentions to outsource parts of the new G.I. Bill. David K. Rehbein, the group’s new national commander, said he shares the goal of greater efficiency — but not the move to privatization.

“We have no quarrel with the idea,” Rehbein said in a Sept. 11 statement, “but we believe strongly that VA currently possesses the talents, skills, expertise and resources to implement such modernization. VA was created to fulfill obligations like this, not to hire someone else to do it.”

Privatization opponents have a tough road ahead: Though the new G.I. Bill included funding to help the VA with the transition, it doesn’t direct the agency how to do it.

There is also dispute over how the privatization will affect jobs. Pedigo testified Thursday that the VA “does not anticipate the loss of federal employment” as a result of the computer system outsourcing.

The American Federation of Government Employees, however, estimates the move would “uproot” 400 federal workers. “It’s outsourcing an inherently governmental function,” Alma Lee, president of the AFGE’s National Veterans Affairs Council, said in a statement. Lee said that it was not the intent of the bill’s architects to outsource the VA’s duties.

Signed into law in June after a long and tense partisan debate, the new G.I. Bill expands the heralded veterans education benefit to provide more funding for those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The legislation was championed by freshman Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), a decorated Vietnam veteran who made the expansion the focal point of his first 18 months in the upper chamber.

Kimberly Hunter, Webb’s spokeswoman, said the Virginia Democrat is watching the VA’s outsourcing plan closely, but has yet to weigh in.

There will be plenty of opportunity to follow the saga. Herseth said Thursday that she’s planning another hearing on the topic later this month. Filner, meanwhile, said he’ll push to learn the bid details — and knowledge of the winner — before the contract award is publicized.

“We need more information,” he said. “I don’t trust them.”

Despite the sharp tone of Thursday’s hearing, there were a few rare moments of levity. After failing to learn which companies remain in contention, for example, Filner offered a light warning: “If Halliburton gets this,” he said to laughter, “you guys are in trouble.”