Rep. Rouzer on Wilmington VA Clinic and combat-injured vet bill

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — In a one on one interview with Congressman David Rouzer, we spoke about combat-injured veterans and got an update on the Wilmington VA Clinic. We also learned how more than 550 wounded veterans in North Carolina could benefit from a bill he wrote that President Obama recently signed into law.

Representative Rouzer says the Combat-Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act of 2016 could help nearly 14,000 veterans,with more than 550 veterans from North Carolina, who were taxed on their severance packages when they should not have been.

“This bill basically say we are going to right this wrong,” Representative Rouzer said, “(and)enable those veterans who received a severance package to file an amended tax return with the IRS to get their money back.”

On the Wilmington VA Clinic that has been in the spotlight over the past couple of years for water issues and expensive lease on the taxpayer’s dime….

“The whole lease process needs to be examined,” Rep. Rouzer said, “not just from the VA standpoint, but government wide.That is something that I’m hopeful the new administration will tackle and take a good look at.”

“Now the water issues still remains,” he continued. “They’ve got an engineering firm that the owner of the building is paying for to try and find the problem. The issue is that it’s kind of like finding a needle in a haystack, but I have no doubt, because it is in the financial interest of the owner of the building, that (they)eventually figure out what the origin of the problem is. But in terms of providing services, all services are being provided since march or april of this year.”

In Part 1 of our one-on-one with Congressman Rouzer, we discussed HB2 and state government restructuring.