are a result of Congressional tinkering. Congress frequently is apprised of a 'problem' (meaning a constituent has a specific issue which may or may not be valid) and then reacts (the Congroid involved slaps an amendment onto the appropriation bill) and passes a law to 'fix' the problem.

The problem is they also work offline by contacting DoD or the VA to 'suggest' certain fixes. Unfortunately, all these fixes, by amendment and by offline interference result in creating chaos and adding tons of bureaucratic complexity to what should be simple and forthright procedures and the disability systems -- both -- are as good examples of that as is our over 16,000 page Tax Code.

As always, the troops pay the price.

All that said, I agree that the whole system needs to be scrapped and re-done but my normal cheerful optimism is replaced, whenever Congress is involved, by extremely dour pessimism; no good can come of it...