Instead of Austerity and Slogans, the VA Needs Full Funding and Accountability

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/180007/instead-austerity-and-slogans-va-needs-full-funding-and-accountability


Dire reports about the failure of the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide adequate care for those who served in this country's military forces are not just a serious issue for veterans. They are a serious issue for every American who believes the federal government can and must meet the basic commitments necessary to maintain a civil society.

Unfortunately, that seriousness is not reflected in the frenzy of finger-pointing that has developed as a response to “the public’s outrage over excessive wait times and rigged record-keeping at Veterans Affairs hospitals”—an outrage that the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents caregivers for vets, refers to as “more than justified.”

There is no question that the VA has a problem that must be addressed.

The question is whether the politicians in Washington are ready to address it.

The most predictable of the political careerists, Republican and Democrat, seem to think that firing VA Secretary Eric Shinseki will somehow “fix” things, or that the removal of a few failed managers will suddenly create a functional VA. But that is an absurdly insufficient response.

[Keefer]

1. According to the VA's own statistics

funding has gone up 68% between 2009 and 2015.

.pdf:

VA 2015 Budget Request Fast Facts
Total VA funding has grown in 2015 by nearly 68% from 2009

http://www.va.gov/budget/docs/summary/Fy2015-FastFactsVAsBudgetHighlights.pdf

[Wounded Bear]

2. My response to your post falls somewhere between "that's nice" and "so what"...

Posting a budget request says nothing. What are the chances that it is approved as is? I'd say between slim and none.

Bush and the Repubs left the VA in a bit of a shambles, what with two unfunded wars and thousands of vets needing care. Pres Obama has raised funding-over Republican opposition-from inadequate to barely adequate to cover needs of 10 years ago. Repubs in the Senate tried to turn a recent VA funding bill into a political football and caused its demise. It would have opened over 20 new facilities to help treat the increases in needs from the Bush Wars.

I'm a Vet and I don't vote Republican.

[Keefer]

3. I wasn't really looking for a response

I was just posting facts from the VA.

BTW: I'm a vet too. 10 years USAF. I can't recall EVER voting (R).

[AsahinaKimi]

4. Thank you for your service... I sure wish they would

Build more and get more money for the Veterans Administration. They certainly deserve it and need it.

[rhett o rick]

5. The Republicans want their cake and eat it too.

They want to slash funding for our vets and criticize the Democrats for the vets not getting good care.

(I)ndependent Senator Sanders summed it up to the Republicans, “If you think it’s too expensive (to fund veterans programs), then don’t send them off to war.”

Some might figure that the Republican's reluctance to help vets is due to the fact they want to damage the Democratic Administration as much as possible. While that is obviously true, research will prove that the Republicans were voting down funding for veterans even during the Bush decade, even during the Republican War.

The bottom line is that Republican Party and Blue Dog Democrats have no respect for our veterans.