About a week or so back, I read an entry at Army of Dude about the Veterans Administration’s apparent difficulties in delivering the benefits that Congress promised to veterans. I was kind of skeptical. In fact, my original reaction is posted at the blog that linked to the Dude post (h/t to Ink Spots).

However, after thinking through this some more and discussing it with other people, I have a different take. While I do not absolve individuals of responsibilities for their actions – to include planning ahead for contingencies (hello, you’re all veterans, right?), I do find myself siding with the vets in this case who are being stonewalled by the inertia of a bureaucracy that is struggling to adjust to the new requirements imposed upon it by Congress.

Here is why I changed my mind. First, let’s try out my initial gut instinct reply: You can't hold the Army responsible for your financial decisions and/or misfortune. Where did all of your deployment money go? Maybe if you had exercised a little better stewardship over your money then you wouldn't be so dependent on this governmment check. That was my instinctive reaction. But upon further thought, try turning that around.

Suppose I am the veteran who is not getting his promised tuition check: You can't hold me responsible for your failure to pay a promised benefit, simply because you also paid me a decent salary. That would be like me paying an employee gobs of money and promising him tuition assistance as part of his compensation package, and then, when he enrolls in some classes in reliance upon my promise, I drag my feet on ponying up because, "hey man, I pay you a lot."

So my instinctive reaction was wrong. But I wonder what productive steps are being taken to overcome this problem. I understand that many are probably looking for a legal/regulatory fix. Others might be looking for some petty, punitive repercussions just to fool their constituents into thinking that they’re “fighting for the little guy.” But those don’t seem realistic, practical, or constructive. In the short term, it seems like some informal adjustments of terms and some common sense could solve this problem.

Think about how things get done in the military. We don't look to regulations. We do "dope deals" that work as stopgap measures until things can get sorted out (you're short on V-packs and plussed up on HC smoke? Well I'm short on HC smoke and got a few extra V-packs - let's trade). Obviously the fix for VA would need to be slightly more sophisticated than “dope deals,” but my point is that informal arrangements are the quickest way to get things done. It’s generally how most bureaucracies function, in spite of their ridiculous regulations.

So, here is my thinking. Say I'm a school administrator. A veteran is clearly eligible for the GI Bill, but the money hasn't shown up yet. He's done everything that he can do on his end. Now he's waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Why am I demanding that he cough up the cash RIGHT NOW? A few questions that the VA could pose to the school to illustrate how unreasonable this is.

1) Mr./Mrs. School Administrator: does it cost you one dime for a veteran to sit in on the first week of lectures in his classes? I mean, seriously, the lecture will be given whether that particular student is there or not. Are your expenses increasing because an otherwise vacant seat has that student's duff in it for a couple hours?

2) Okay, we (the big, faceless, lethargic bureaucracy) are in a little over our heads. We're screwed up. Sorry. But we're not asking you to fix this on our behalf. We're mere agents of the student. The student is the principal who is getting screwed here, at no fault of his own. Help us to help your student. Extend the grace period on the student's account balance.

3) I suspect that the school's accountant can rationalize a "loss" for the amount of interest that the school could have earned on the outstanding balance in the two or three weeks that it arrives late. Meanwhile, by just doing this simple administrative extension, there are cost savings on the administrative legwork of rigidly adhering to the current inflexible policy.

Also - has anyone tried to find a way to give the school an incentive to train up their VA rep? That seems worth considering, since that appears to be one point of failure in this system.

In the first week of a course on Secured Transactions in law school, my professor must have said at least a dozen times that it is rarely in the lender's interest to forcefully extract money by threat of legal action or to go after the collateral (and she was right). It is usually in the lender's interest to modify the terms of the loan and work with the borrower. The relation between lender and borrower does not seem significantly different than the relation between debt and debtor in this case. Given that the student could simply break off the relationship and owe nothing, it seems that the school does not have much to lose by adjusting the terms ever-so-slightly. Besides, I suspect that this check, which is presumably in the mail, is backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government (which apparently still means something).

Just my two cents.