Q & A with Greg Ball

C&S: The federal government has dealt with questions about funding levels for the military in recent years. Now there is a major scandal unfolding within the V.A. What is the general state of military and veterans’ affairs?
GB: The way our federal government has repeatedly failed to do right by our veterans is sickening, and a dereliction of duty. We do a great job of getting young men and women to raise their right hand and say, “I’m willing to fight and die for this country,” but we do not do a great job transitioning them back into the civilian economy.

C&S: On a state specific level, what is your assessment of how well the state handles military and veterans’ affairs?
GB: There is always more work to be done, and it has been an enormous lift in this state even to get common-sense legislation done for our veterans. However, over the past two years we have made great progress by creating the Hire-A-Vet tax credit that will cut taxes for those who employ veterans, and we have also created a 6 percent state contract set-aside for service-connected disabled veterans, which in real dollars is worth about $400 million and will create tens of thousands of jobs.

C&S: How would you assess the state Legislature’s performance from the session that just ended in terms of passing the legislation needed to address issues facing veterans?
GB: New Yorkers can stand tall and proud knowing that we have kept America’s promise to our veterans and service-disabled heroes. The landmark 6 percent set-aside legislation will create tens of thousands of jobs for veterans statewide and will allow service-disabled veteran small business owners to tap into hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracting. This single act will do more to reverse the high veteran unemployment rate than anything else we have done, or will do. Yet beyond just creating jobs, this is about saving lives and confronting the epidemic of veteran suicide through meaningful employment. We have been fighting to establish this set-aside for years, and I want to sincerely thank Gov. Cuomo for giving us the backing we desperately needed at a critical time. Gov. Cuomo is to be applauded for keeping his commitment to our heroes.