[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 26 (Thursday, March 10, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              FEDERAL WORKFORCE RESTRUCTURING ACT OF 1994

                                 ______


                               speech of

                      HON. G.V. (SONNY) MONTGOMERY

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 8, 1994

  Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Speaker, as we move to impose reductions in the 
Federal work force, we must be careful not to require across-the-board 
reductions throughout the Government. As I said when I introduced a 
measure on Federal work force reductions last month, the policy of 
making the Veterans Health Administration subject to across-the-board 
cuts now being implemented by the administration does not make any 
sense.
  The Department of Veterans Affairs employs approximately 11 percent 
of the Federal civilian work force. If you walk into a VA outpatient 
clinic today, VA officials will tell you that they have rationed care 
or told some veterans that they will have to get care elsewhere. 
Although the proposed Health Security Act (H.R. 3600) might resolve 
some of these problems, the demand for VA services today is far greater 
than the VA's capacity to provide them.
  VA needs to have flexibility in meeting the future work force needs 
of its health care system. If this country is going to honor its 
commitment to provide health care to our Nation's veterans, we should 
take steps to increase the VA's ability to provide care to veterans who 
want it.
  If VA were forced to reduce the number of its employees by 5,000 
every year for the next 5 years, it would have to tell even more 
veterans to get their health care someplace else. I want the VA to be 
able to provide health care in the same manner as private health-care 
providers. But if we insist that the VA participate in these across-
the-board cuts the same as every other Federal agency, the VA isn't 
going to make it.
  Forcing the VA to begin shrinking services to veterans, when it 
should be making VA health care more accessible, is bad policy for 
veterans and for this Nation. The only reason for reducing the size of 
the VA work force is if veterans stop demanding care from the VA.
  VA is a safety net for disabled and poor veterans. There is nothing 
in this bill that assures these veterans health care from other sources 
if the VA loses 25,000 employees. Therefore, I want to tell my 
colleagues that this work force reduction should not be implemented in 
an across-the-board fashion. As the GAO said:

       Across-the-board reductions that do not recognize the 
     differing capacities of agencies to absorb such cuts could 
     significantly exacerbate existing gaps in agencies' abilities 
     to meet their missions. As the overall level of Federal 
     employment is reduced, downsizing efforts need to allow for 
     adding high quality staff to those agencies where shortages 
     of properly skilled staff are hampering their effectiveness.

  At a hearing held by our committee today, the representatives of 
almost 3 million veterans who depend on VA for their health care argued 
very vehemently against making VA subject to these across-the-board 
cuts in employment.
  VA hospitals are not bloated bureaucracies. They are institutions 
which provide compassionate care to poor and disabled veterans. Many of 
these veterans are suffering from diseases such as mental illness, 
alcoholism, or other diseases which some community hospitals either 
disdain or find unprofitable. People are the lifeblood of a hospital. 
Eliminating staff from a hospital's workforce means shutting down the 
wards in which care is provided. We can't fool ourselves into thinking 
that because a profit-making multinational corporation can reduce its 
workforce and increase profits that we can streamline VA hospitals that 
serve as a safety net for our veterans.
  As the Vice President's report on ``Reinventing Government'' noted:

       FTE ceilings are frequently arbitrary, rarely account for 
     challenging circumstances, and are normally imposed as 
     across-the-board percentage cuts in FTEs for all of an 
     agency's units. . . . The President should direct OMB and 
     agency heads to stop setting FTE ceilings in fiscal year 
     1995. . . . Instead of controlling the size of the federal 
     workforce by employment ceilings--which cause inefficiencies 
     and distortions in managers' personnel and resource 
     allocation decisions--[the Executive branch should] control 
     the federal workforce by dollars available in operating 
     funds.

  I agree with the Vice President's report, and would also note, as I 
did when I introduced H.R. 3808, that management flexibility is the key 
to reinventing the VA as an efficient health care provider in the 
future. Thus, as I have discussed with Chairman Clay, I plan to pursue 
House action on this measure to exempt VA from across-the-board cuts in 
the near future. To do otherwise is to breach the commitment that was 
made to veterans when we agreed to try to reform the VA health care 
system.

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