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assistance programs be used. It also recommends that the pension benefit should be on a sliding scale with only a partial offset for earned income, so that pensioners will have an incentive to work and will not lose their entire pension because they earn a small amount. In view of the basic character of the OASI system, the gratuitous pension benefits should not exceed comparable benefits which will be paid by OASI when it reaches reasonable maturity.

The Commission also recommends that other eligibility conditions be adjusted to shift emphasis toward providing assistance for those who need it most and doing so in the most constructive fashion. In keeping with this policy, a disability of at least 30 percent should be required at ages below 70, and procedural arrangements should be established so that applicants for benefits will be served by the Federal-State Employment and Vocational Rehabilitation Services. Only those found incapable of rehabilitation and unemployable should be eligible for a pension bringing their income up to the level underwritten by the Government.

Benefits should take account of family responsibilities, and resources available should likewise be determined on a family basis. In line with present Federal-State public assistance standards, a guaranteed income of, for example, $70 per month for a single veteran and $105 per month for a veteran with a wife, would currently meet the stated criteria for the majority of cases. Rates and limits for widows and orphans should be correspondingly adjusted.

Administration

Sound programs to serve the welfare of veterans will be developed in the future only if their needs are fully understood and measured. The administration of veterans' programs cannot be forward-looking unless the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs has at hand the necessary facts about the effectiveness of his programs and their relationship to the total structure of benefits which other agencies provide.

The Commission believes that the Administrator should have improved facilities for the analysis and review of the many large

programs which he administers so that he can manage them effectively and also be equipped fully to advise the Congress and the President on policy issues. At the same time, limits and procedural safeguards should be placed on the exercise of the broad and unchecked authority now delegated to the Administrator.

Adequate and economical service to veterans by the Federal Government also requires improvement in the machinery for top-level coordination on a governmentwide basis of the various programs which serve veterans directly or indirectly. This machinery is necessary not only to assure that these programs operate in a coordinated framework, but also to enable the executive branch to provide more adequate information to the Congress.

THE COMMISSION'S PHILOSOPHY

No group of people in a year's time can hope to provide all the final answers to the complex problems involving veterans' benefits. The subjects touched on are deeply colored by emotion and tradition; they have been the cause of many debates in the past and will doubtless cause many in the future. Insofar as possible, the Commission has tried to limit the area of debate by resting its own conclusions on basic facts. Some of the most important of these facts are new-disclosed by the Commission's own research projects. Other facts were developed by other researchers and brought into the veterans' benefit picture for the first time by the Commission.

It is the hope of the Commission that these primary facts, augmented by continuing research, will lead to a more equitable and rational system of veterans' benefits-one adjusted to the real needs of veterans on the one hand, and to the requirements of a healthy national economy on the other. The Commission's recommendations have been made in this context. It has kept fully in mind, in all of its deliberations, that it is dealing directly with the welfare of almost half of the population who are either veterans or the dependents of veterans. It has also been mindful that the welfare of the nonveteran half of the population is concerned almost as directly.

PART II.

THE COMMISSION'S

FINDINGS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

75576-56

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION: A NEW ERA IN VETERANS'

BENEFITS

The veterans' benefits programs have served a constructive purpose for many years. The United States has the most liberal and comprehensive benefits for veterans of any country in the world. The duty of this Commission has been to examine these programs to see how they might be made to work better, in light of the present-day needs of veterans and their growing number. One overriding conclusion emerges from the Commission's studies. As a people we have entered a new era in meeting the problems of veterans. Changes of great and fundamental importance have occurred. These events are forcing us to clarify the nature and the scope of our public responsibility to veterans.

As the facts emerged from the Commission's background studies, certain striking changes involving veterans and society at large were seen to be dominant in an up-to-date appraisal of veterans' benefits.

One change is in the growing number of veterans. Most of the precedents in this field developed during periods when veterans and their dependents were a relatively small minority of the population. Today there are 22 million veterans in civil life and nearly 3 million persons in the Armed Forces. Since the beginning of World War II the number of veterans has increased fivefold. Servicemen, veterans, and their families now number approximately 81 million people-about 49 percent of the population.

Other changes are constantly occurring in the provisions of veterans' laws. Over the past 15 years, in particular, these laws have been expanded and liberalized. Partly as a result of this, and partly as a result of the increase in the number of persons involved, veterans' benefits are now the third largest item in the expanded Federal budget.

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