STATEMENT OF DAVID L. SCHNAIR, NATIONAL SERVICE OFFICER, BLINDED VETERANS ASSOCIATION, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT D. CARTER, ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AND DENNIS R. WYANT, NATIONAL FIELD SERVICE DIRECTOR

Mr. SCHNAIR. Thank you, Senator Talmadge, for having us here again and, on behalf of the committee, we are always glad for the cooperation they extend to us.

Senator TALMADGE. Thank you.

Mr. SCHNAIR. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it is a very real privilege to appear before you today on behalf of the Blinded Veterans Association. I know the members of the BVA are grateful for this occasion where their views on certain pending bills can be expressed. For my part, I appreciate the opportunity to personally meet with you.

Mr. Chairman, this is the first opportunity the Blinded Veterans Association has had to appear before the members of this distinguished committee since its inception. Thus, before turning to a discussion of our views on S. 3067, S. 3072, and S. 2363, I would like to provide a brief background on the BVA and its objectives.

The BVA was founded in 1945 as a membership organization of veterans who lost their sight as a result of their service in the Armed Forces of the United States. It was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1947 and chartered by act of Congress in 1958. Our members include blinded veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korea conflict, the Vietnam era, and peacetime service. Fortunately, the number of living veterans with service-connected blindness is relatively small. However, the problems of the individual blinded veteran and his family in adjusting to blindness can be great. Therefore, the Blinded Veterans Association, since its inception, has concentrated its efforts on assuring the maintenance of high quality rehabilitation services by the Veterans' Administration and in motivating and assisting the blinded veteran to take advantage of these services. Our goal, in effect, is to assist each other to lead as normal a life as possible as productive citizens in our home communities.

Our objective and these efforts have been significantly manifested during the past year with the reintroduction of an expanded BVA field service program which operates with funds made available under a contract negotiated with the Veterans' Administration in 1972. We indeed are grateful for the opportunity the Veterans' Administration funds provide for the BVA to demonstrate the effectiveness blinded veterans can achieve in assisting each other to become productive and useful citizens.

Our field service program staff currently includes five blinded veterans: a national field service director supervising its activities from our national office and four field representatives. The latter travel throughout the United States seeking out blinded veterans to determine their needs, to acquaint them with available Federal, State, and local government, and other community resources, and to motivate them to take advantage of these services with the goal of becoming gainfully employed and dignified citizens.

In our outreach efforts, the field service program staff also has been conducting an ongoing educational program at each Veterans' Admin

istration regional office and at each Veterans' Administration hospital with a view to assuring that the personnel of these facilities are aware of the capabilities of the blind, potential problems, rehabilitation techniques, and of the wide range of facilities and community resources which are available to serve and assist the blind.

While not ignoring blinded veterans from earlier periods, the staff has concentrated on reaching the approximately 650 Vietnam era blinded veterans in this first year of the expanded field service. Since March 1973, the field service director or the field representatives have contacted more than two-thirds of these veterans and by June 1974, we hope to have established contact with all of the known Vietnam era blinded veterans. The BVA takes considerable satisfaction from the early successes achieved in this activity and looks forward to continuing and fruitful cooperation with the Veterans' Administration in the coming years in pursuance of our mutual objective.

The loss of sight is many losses. It is expensive and it is a financial handicap. In many instances many of us, both old and newly blinded alike, and for many reasons, remain the victims of our handicaps and must live and provide for our families on the fixed income of our disability compensation. Because of our disabilities and conditions stemming from them, many of us are unemployed or underemployed; often our disabilities prevent our wives from obtaining employment to augment the family income, the method used by more and more families to meet the increased cost of living which has risen steadily over the years. For those of us who must make it on the fixed income of our disability compensation, the disparity between our compensation and rising costs begins after the enactment of a compensation increase and widens steadily until it is reduced by a subsequent increase. Except for a very brief period, we are always behind.

Grateful as blinded veterans have been for the disability compensation increases provided over the years as living costs have risen, we feel there now is a very real and urgent need for prompt legislative action providing for additional, larger increases since the cost of living has skyrocketed following enactment of the current disability compensation rates in August 1972. Between that latter date, when the Consumer Price Index was 125.7, and January 1974, the index had risen markedly to 139.7, an increase of 14 percentage points within a 16/17-month period. Unfortunately, as living costs still are rising, we have no reason to believe, nor is there much assurance, that the sharp increase in the Consumer Price Index will not continue indefinitely.

The BVA was indeed pleased with the introduction of S. 2710 by the Chairman in November before Congress recessed and with the introduction last month of S. 3067 by Senator Talmadge and his cosponsors. We agree that the 15 percent increase in disability compensation for severely and totally disabled service-connected veterans compares very favorably with the Consumer Price Index statistics. Accordingly, we support the 15 percent increase as provided in S. 3067, with certain modifications as outlined below, as well as the 16 percent increase in dependency and indemnity compensation provided in S. 3072, introduced by Chairman Vance Hartke.

There always has been a lag between the enactment of compensation increases for disabled veterans and their survivors and the continuing rise in the cost of living. This has been particularly significant in the

months since the August 1972 compensation increase. Since every indication is that the Consumer Price Index will continue to spiral upward, the BVA strongly urges the Congress to enact legislation promptly which will assure that the compensation payable to veterans for service-connected disabilities will keep pace with the continuing increases in the cost of living. We believe that this requires the adoption of an automatic cost-of-living system similar to that now applicable to civil service personnel, retired Government employees and numerous other groups. We note that, in his March 4th communications to the Chairman Vance Hartke and Senator Hansen, President Nixon recommended a 12-percent increase in disability compensation, effective March 1, 1974. The President also recommended that future increases in disability compensation be provided by automatic cost-of-living adjustments. While we believe that the 12-percent increase is inadequate, we fully support both the cost-of-living adjustments, as already indicated, and the March 1st effective date recommended by the President to avoid continuing erosion in the purchasing power of disability compensation as the cost of living continues to rise. If the Congress should conclude not to adopt the automatic cost-of-living adjustment system at this time, Mr. Chairman, we are of the strong opinion that a much higher increase in disability compensation-at least 20 percent would be justified, effective March 1, 1974. Only by such an anticipatory increase can disabled veterans be provided with a measure of protection against the continuing erosion in the purchasing power of their compensation.

Mr. Chairman, there are a number of other very important changes which we believe are required in the disability compensation system, such as an additional aid and attendance allowance for certain serviceconnected blinded veterans, liberalized awards for blinded veterans suffering from blindness in combination with the loss or loss of use of a hand or leg and the revision of the current method used by the Veterans' Administration in rating hearing loss in combination with blindness. We are not dwelling on these today because, in accordance with your request, we are directing our statement to the three bills which are the subject of today's hearing. However, we would welcome an opportunity to present our views on these matters to this committee on another occasion.

Mr. Chairman, in recent years the continuing No. 1 legislative priority of the BVA, after compensation increases to stay abreast of the cost of living, has been the provision of adequate survivorship benefits for the families of deceased permanent and totally disabled veterans. At the present time, when a permanently and total disabled veteran in receipt of disability compensation dies from causes not clearly service connected, his survivors are not eligible for Disability and Indemnity Compensation, the system provided when families are deprived of support by the service-connected death of a veteran. The veteran's survivors are left to whatever they may be entitled under the pension system. We in the BVA believe this wrong and unconscionable.

A totally disabled veteran has little or no chance to build up his estate because of his inability to obtain adequate insurance and adequate employment, the normal means of creating a suitable estate. The

veteran's disability may make him ineligible for insurance or may make its cost prohibitive. His inability or limited ability to engage in gainful employment limits the amount of savings he can accumulate and, more importantly, prevents him from building up social security benefits available to the rest of the population. Under the circumstances, therefore, we think it is the inescapable obligation of the Government to assist these veterans and their families in solving this problem occasioned by the veterans' military service.

Thus, the members of the BVA favor legislation which would provide for the statutory presumption of service-connected death of severely and totally disabled service-connected veterans. Provisions of S. 3072 would meet this vital need and we endorse them, subject to the comments and suggested modifications cited below.

We believe that entitlement to DIC for the survivors of a veteran having a permanent and total service-connected disability is justified on the basis of the profound effect the veteran's disability has on his capacity to provide for the economic well being of his family after the veteran's death. However, we cannot believe that the disability has had a less profound effect if the veteran dies less than 20 years after the original disability was incurred. Certainly, the needs of the veteran's family are not any less because of his shorter period of disability. Therefore, we would recommend that S. 3072 be modified to eliminate the requirement that a veteran must be permanently and totally disabled for at least 20 years in order that his survivors be eligible for DIC. Similarly, we believe that the provisions of S. 3072 which would bar DIC payment when the death of a service-connected totally disabled veteran was occasioned by accidental causes is discriminatory. The veteran and his family most assuredly are still subject to the same economic problems in creating an adequate estate whether his death is accidental or not. Accordingly, we urgently request that such provision be eliminated.

This committee will be interested to know that Canada long ago saw fit to provide survivorship protection for the families of its seriously disabled veterans defined as those 50 percent or more disabled without any means tests and without distinction as to the cause of death. Canada also grants the surviving widow of such a veteran the full amount of his disability compensation for 1 year after his death as a means of assisting her to adjust to new financial circumstances. According to our information, the widow of a Canadian veteran who is rated 100 percent disabled for service-connected blindness receives a widow's pension of at least $200 a month. Also, the children's allowances are doubled to the widow on the veteran's death. Thus, we understand that the widow of a Canadian blinded veteran with three dependent children would receive at least $360 a month. This amount is not related to the cause of the veteran's death nor to his widow's financial resources. The sole criterion for eligibility for these benefits is the veteran's permanent and total service-connected disability. Surely, the United States ought to be able to provide similar protection for the families of its permanently and totally disabled veterans.

The BVA would like to express its support of S. 2363, particularly the two portions described below.

In April 1973, we testified before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs in favor of bills which would extend to those disabled veterans

who served on or after February 1, 1955-particularly those serving in the Vietnam era-the same eligibility for the automobile allowance grant as is presently available to disabled veterans who served during World War II and the Korea conflict. In appearing before this Senate Committee, we are anxious to reiterate our support of such legislation which now has been embodied in S. 2363. The BVA is fully in accord with the Veterans' Administration concurrence as contained in a communication to the House Committee on April 26, 1973 to remove the present statutory discrimination against veterans of the Vietnam era which requires that the prescribed disability for this eligibility must be "a direct result of the performance of military duty".

The BVA also specifically endorses that portion of S. 2363 which is designed to amend section 1902, title 38, United States Code, to increase the automobile allowance grant to disabled veterans to $3,300. We fully support the efforts of the Paralyzed Veterans of America in seeking an increase in the amount of this allowance in view of the marked increase in the cost of living subsequent to enactment of the presently authorized $2,800.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say how very appreciative the entire membership of the Blinded Veterans Association is for the efforts this committee has made and is making on behalf of the Nation's veterans. We know that you share with us mutual concerns for America's blinded veterans and that the BVA can look to the members of this committee and the committee staff in our working together to provide all blinded veterans with the benefits and resources so essential to their well being. We sincerely hope that you will favorably act on the legislation we have endorsed or recommended in this statement, legislation which we deeply believe is urgently needed at this time.

We have been down here year after year trying to convince the Senate as to the necessity for having the dependents of 100-percent disabled veterans as presumption of death for any cause other than a service-connected disability.

It works a very unusual hardship on the wife who has been with him all the years, depriving her of an opportunity to get any gainful employment to supplement the income, and to have something happen where she has to go on welfare after his demise; is not treating her the right way at all.

As a matter of fact, this past Monday, I had the sad occasion to attend the burial rites of one of our blinded veterans who passed away. His widow thought it was the end of the world for her since she has no other way of getting along rather than having any welfare. I pointed out to her that we were going to be down here on Wednesday and I am certain that the Senate will give a sympathetic consideration of this particular aspect of it.

If I may get back to the question that was brought up by the Veterans' Administration people. Mr. Vaughn, in relation to presumption of tests: does any disabled person, with all of his frustration, aggravation, and what have you, that they have to entail in their every day living under the disabled conditions, it brings on a number of secondary ailments that certainly are attributable to their primary disability for which they are service connected.