The lip service that the Obama administration pays to veterans about their health care — given excessive waits at Veteran Affairs facilities and suicide hotline delays — extends to hiring them for federal jobs.
By law, disabled veterans and those with active-duty service are supposed to get preference in federal hiring. But a government report shows that’s not always the case, specifically when political appointees are considered for plum jobs.
“There is a clear bias against veterans,” Darin Selnick, a retired Air Force captain and former Veterans Affairs official, tells The Daily Signal. “They think veterans should start at the bottom like everyone else.”
Of course, experience and qualifications are factored for federal job applicants; the law is supposed to prevent political favoritism. But in hiring a quarter of President Obama’s political appointees, federal agencies didn’t follow policies to avoid favoritism, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO report sampled 30 federal agencies from January 2010 to October 2015.
Never mind proposed changes to hiring policies that would limit veterans’ job preference to a single use. For vets who have secured civilian government jobs, that would eliminate any preference consideration when they apply for higher positions.
Our country owes its veterans a debt for their service. Playing fast and loose when it comes to federal job hiring is an intolerable disservice that deserves no place in any administration.
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