Anger over the treatment of American veterans hasn’t cooled in some quarters of Congress. Freshman Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL), who serves on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, last week called for the resignation of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. Hare and others are steaming over the latest reports that $3.8 million in bonuses were given to senior officials at the embattled Veterans Administration in 2006. Among those given bonuses—as much as $33,000 each—were regional directors who wrote the VA's faulty 2005 budget, which government investigators have concluded was laden with misleading accounting that included claiming for false savings of $1.3 billion. On Friday, Rep. John Hall, Democrat of New York, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance, said he was introducing legislation that would freeze all future bonus payments to VA officials until the department cuts the backlog of veteran claims from the current number, between 400,000 and 600,000, to under 100,000.

Hare, a veteran who served in the Army Reserves from 1969-1975, spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Jamie Reno on Friday. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What was your initial reaction when you learned that these bonuses were given out to senior VA officials?
Rep. Phil Hare: When I read the story, I just said, “Oh, no!” As far as I’m concerned, this is all she wrote for Secretary Nicholson. He should resign now. This is outrageous and I’m very angry about it. I was shocked at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it isn’t really that shocking considering this secretary’s history, and this administration’s history, with regard to veterans.

The VA is saying that these kinds of payments are simply necessary to retain hard-working, quality career officials. You obviously don’t agree.
No, I’m not buying it. There are all kinds of people in government who do quality work. To keep good people in government service, we do need to pay them well and give them cost-of-living raises and such. But it is unconscionable for the VA to be giving out bonuses of as much as $33,000 when we have 600,000 veterans still waiting for their claims, when we have shortages in staff at VA outpatient clinics, when we have veterans waiting and waiting to see a doctor, and when we don’t have enough people to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Not to mention the problems at Walter Reed [Army Medical Center]. The timing of this could not have been worse. Neither the veterans themselves, nor the doctors and nurses and other people who are out there working day-to-day with the veterans are getting these bonuses. Instead, they’re going to senior VA officials. I assure you we are going to get to the bottom of this. Enough is enough.

Do you support the proposed legislation from Rep. Hall that would put a freeze on future bonuses to VA officials?
Yes, I think it sends exactly the right message to our veterans. Ultimately, I hope we pursue a course that results in the disability backlog being reduced to zero. In the interim, this bill to freeze VA bonuses until the number of pending claims is fewer than 100,000 is the right thing to do. In the end, I hope it will persuade this administration to step up their efforts.

What else do you plan to do on this issue?
Besides supporting the proposed legislation, I will be asking some very pointed questions at the upcoming hearings. Rep. Harry Mitchell [chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight] has already announced that he’ll be holding hearings on this. This will be a serious investigation. Also, Secretary Nicholson will be coming before our committee on another matter on Wednesday [May 9], but the bulk of the questions, at least from me, will be about these bonuses. I will listen to what the secretary has to say, but I will not back down from my position that he should resign.

What are your constituents, specifically the veterans in your district, saying about these bonuses?
There are veterans out there with outstanding disability claims who are reading about these bonuses and concluding that the government really doesn’t care about them, or their service or their families. This is a very poor message to send to the nation. We’ve really had to push this administration, which is so quick to put our men and women in harm’s way but so reluctant to assist them once they return.

You’ve been a consistently outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s policies on veterans. As a freshman congressman, are you getting much flak for going after such big fish in your first term?
Not at all. I’ve already gotten support from the Speaker [Nancy Pelosi], who just told me I was doing a good job on this issue, and I’ve gotten support from [Veteran Affairs Committee] Chairman Bob Filner, who’s actually called for Nicholson’s resignation in the past. I know I’m just a freshman up here, but I worked hard to get on this [Veterans Affairs] committee, and I don’t care if you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, this issue should concern everyone.

You worked in the Illinois office of Rep. Lane Evans, your predecessor and a fellow veteran, for more than 20 years, and he was known for battling the VA over the Agent Orange issue, among other things. Are you in a sense carrying on his work?
Yes. I spoke to thousands of veterans while working with Lane over the years as his district supervisor. He fought for years to get veterans benefits for those who had been harmed by Agent Orange, which as you recall the VA said only caused bad acne.

Since arriving on the Hill you’ve also been trying to get more benefits to veterans of past wars, but where is that money going to come from?
I’m working to compensate the courageous Filipino veterans, for example, who fought with us in World War II and harassed the Japanese during the Bataan Death March and saved American lives. There were at one time 250,000 of these Filipino veterans, but there are only about 22,000 left. I‘m trying to secure just $500 a month for them or their spouses for their service to our country. Gen. [Douglas] MacArthur promised them this, as did Harry Truman.

I’m also working to get $1,000 a month to the Merchant Marines from World War II, who per capita, lost more lives than any other branch of the service during that war. The Merchant Marines were the lifeblood of the service, getting supplies to the troops. I just wonder how many of them could we have supported with the nearly $4 million that went instead to bonuses to these VA officials?

There are many homeless veterans out there, as well, and I can only imagine how many of them we could feed for $3.8 million. Secretary Nicholson comes before our committee and paints a rosy picture to the veterans and consistently praises this administration’s VA budget, even while he calls for a $2 million cut in the prosthetics budget. And, at the same time, he gives out bonuses to VA officials that amounts to nearly twice that amount.

Shouldn’t both sides of the aisle work harder to keep partisan politics out of veteran affairs?
Yes, that’s the point. This guy [Nicholson] is the former head of the Republican National Committee. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican or Independent or Libertarian, as head of the VA you should answer to the veterans first. This is just another example of this administration politicizing every department of the government.

Do you think veteran care and funding will be a major issue in the 2008 presidential election?
Yes, I think it will. People are talking about it. Your magazine did a cover story on it. I support [and have endorsed for president] Sen. [Barack] Obama, who’s from my state. I’ve not talked to him yet about the VA bonuses, but I plan to. He’s a good senator, he’s definitely pro-veteran, and I’m hopeful he will help us out and bring up this issue on the campaign trail. I’d like to see every presidential candidate, from A to Z, focus more on veterans’ issues. We need to focus more on the men and women who are fighting this war and take better care of them when they come home.