The U.S. Department for Veterans Affairs announced Wednesday that it has processed a record 2.5 million disability benefits and pension claims so far this fiscal year.

VA Secretary Doug Collins highlighted the impressive statistic during an interview with Scripps News, calling it "exciting news about the VA putting the veteran first."

"I've always had a philosophy: what gets measured gets done," Collins said. "And for the longest time we had a backlog claim of over 125 days that was over 260,000 when I was sworn in on February 5th. We now know it's under 160,000 — that's over 37%, over 100,000 — because what we did is we put more time and attention on it, we put more people on it, we detailed people, we used overtime, and we're continuing that process. It's not over yet."

"What was said

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