Rep. Derrick Van Orden In Washington D.C - Photo by New York Times
STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU-WAOW) – Veteran suicide rates peak in the first two years after active service, and Congressman Derrick Van Orden believes that this is partly due to their inability to transfer to education following duty smoothly; the VETT ACT seeks to change this.
“The federal government can make things so complicated, you don’t even want to do it,” said Van Orden. “Well, they had all these different series of dashboards and things to click and all these crazy things and hoops you had to jump through to access the education benefits that you earned as a veteran, and this streamlines it.”
The bill would revise the mandate for individualized financial aid shopping sheets due to delays in veterans receiving their education benefits. The new system would ensure that state-approving agencies can only disapprove programs when schools do not provide forms to the maximum extent possible.
The two-year delay to use GI benefits for commercial driver’s licenses would be eliminated, offering up more opportunities sooner, and when it comes to the chances of the bill passing in the U.S. Senate, Van Orden said, “Pretty darn good.”
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