I suppose considering the woes at the Veterans Administration, resigning is the honorable thing to do, and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki is nothing if not an honorable man. And so in the best “the buck stops here” tradition, Shinseki has resigned, despite the fact that many of the VA’s problems long predated him, and have only been exacerbated by congress’s failure to adequately fund the care of our returning veterans.
No doubt Republicans are gleeful at snagging an Obama administration scalp. That’s the way the game is played in the other Washington. But I do find it curious that the same Republicans who angrily demanded Shinseki’s resignation for failing to fix the VA, never demanded the resignations of the bank CEOs who destroyed our economy.
Weird.
Hard to tell, sometimes, the rich guys who destroyed it from the rich guys who helped to save it.
They needed all of the rich guys to take TARP money, whether or not their banks needed it, so that they could hide from the world the ones who really did need it.
They (a collective term, to be sure) needed the BofA guy to buy Merrill Lynch, for instance. And they got tough with him when he tried to back out after figuring out during due diligence that he was expected to complete an acquisition of a lipstick-painted pig. Since it could be argued that the Merrill purchase played a large role in BofA’s woes, it could be argued that the government was responsible, and not BofA’s Ken Lewis, for the assistance that BofA needed.
They needed JPM’s guy Dimon to make a couple of huge purchases.
They needed rich guy Buffett – a large investor in Citigroup and Wells Fargo – to pony up $5B, I think, to prop up BofA. Buffett got a seat next to Michelle Obama at a SOTU even though one of his large investments, Citigroup, needed a lot of help. But he’s a useful tool in other ways, so easy to overlook, I guess. We needed his secretary for awhile. To score a point.
Sometimes rich guys can be your friends. Probably why that pic of Obama hugging Corzine is so popular.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....ew_ad.html
Sounds like they’re friends to me.
I believe he was fired. All cabinet members submit l.o.r.s apon appointment.
I believe he was fired. All cabinet members submit l.o.r.s apon appointment.
re 1 — “Hard to tell, sometimes, the rich guys who destroyed it from the rich guys who helped to save it.”
Yeah. Like it’s hard to tell a mass murderer from a surgeon.
Yawwwn.. What’s next from the baggers in Congress?
More outsourcing of course..
https://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseID=1349
Just do Bush but better!
“But I do find it curious that the same Republicans who angrily demanded Shinseki’s resignation for failing to fix the VA, never demanded the resignations of the bank CEOs who destroyed our economy.”
What’s even more curious is those Republicans aren’t angrily demanding more money for the VA, in order to adequately serve the tide of incoming new veterans they created with their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s just another boring episode of the GOP Daytime TV soap opera affectionately dubbed “All Hat, No Cattle.”
@1 Typical Cheapskate Bob fare: Rationalizations built on assumptions and embellished with material omissions.
Forwarded email I just received:
FAREWELL MESSAGE TO VA EMPLOYEES
This morning, I resigned as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. My personal and professional commitment and my loyalty to Veterans, their families, and our survivors was the driving force behind that decision. That loyalty has never wavered, and it will never wane.
Over the course of the last 5½ years, you have made significant and lasting progress in expanding access for Veterans, in significantly decreasing the backlog in Veterans’ claims while building the system that will end the backlog in 2015, and in bringing an end to Veterans’ homelessness. We have come a long way together in bringing this Department into the 21st Century in ways that will serve Veterans well into the future. Yet, there is more work to be done, and I have no doubt that you will achieve all that you set about doing in the interest of Veterans.
I have been privileged to have served as your Secretary and am deeply grateful to the employees and leaders who have placed the interests of Veterans above and beyond their own self-interests; who are serving with dignity, compassion, and dedication; and who live by VA’s core values of Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect, and Excellence. I know that you will provide your support and loyalty to Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson, who is now your leader. In fact, I expect it.
Thank you. May God richly bless all of you, Veterans, and this great country of ours.
Eric K. Shinseki
@ 6
I won’t argue with the need for more money but your rationale may not be accurate:
(The need for increased VA health funding is not due to the number of veterans, which has
declined over the past decade and is projected to continue doing so. And while injured veterans
returning from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars have put some upward pressure on VA medical care,
the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the cost of patients from those wars
accounted for only 4 percent of total VA medical care costs in 2010 and that those patients cost
about half as much per patient as other veterans.
From
NON-DEFENSE DISCRETIONARY PROGRAMS WILL FACE
SERIOUS PRESSURES UNDER CURRENT FUNDING CAPS
12/6/12
cbpp.org
Not exactly a tide.
Anyone know the difference between the VA funding requested by the Administration and the funding provided by Congress?
The annual budget rose 78% in six budget cycles, with double-digit increases in four of the six years — while Defense spending was flat. No other Cabinet agency had a larger budget increase by percentage during Obama’s tenure. The closest was Agriculture (64%), followed by State (59%, which tends to discredit the canard about the Benghazi failure being caused by a lack of resources). Only HHS had a larger annual budget increase in terms of dollars spent, but it amounts to a 37% increase in spending from the FY2008 baseline. The amount of increase in the VA’s budget in the Obama era, $65.9 billion, exceeds the entire VA budget in the FY2004 budget.
http://hotair.com/archives/201.....p-failure/
Using CBO scoring for both budgets, the GOP Budget exceeds the funding levels for veterans over the next 10 year as compared to the President’s budget
GOP Budget and the President’s Budget: A Comparison
Total Veterans Spending
FY 2013
FY 2013-FY 2022
GOP Budget*
$134.635 B**
$1,510.938 B
President’s Budget*
$135.651 B
$1,494.309 B
http://veterans.house.gov/budget
Is there a substantial difference between what the Administration has proposed and what the GOP budget calls for? Apples/oranges?
re 11 — The VA Scandal Is Rooted In the Delusional Republican Belief That Wars Are Free
http://www.politicususa.com/20.....-math.html
This article directly addresses the Hot Air article you referenced. Now I know at least one source where you get your insta-responses to everything.
Travis: Did you account for the aging vet population and for the two wars and massive expansion of the military under Bush? Did you account for the filibustered ills? Did you account for the increase in wait times for vets?
Why do you swallow the hotair BS whole without any critical eye? If there was so much funding – why are there such long waits? Did you account for the cuts in the sequester and the republican alternative to the sequester that would only have increased defense spending and put vet benefits and the VA further behind? Did you account for the Feb. filibuster of the VA bill?
Seems this article IS full of hot air – and you took it hook line and sinker. Why are you so gullible?
@ 13
The last two sentences in what I posted were questions. Not declarative statements, but questions. As in, what am I missing here?
I thank you for your input. There’s a lot I did not account for, to be sure. If there’s a VA doctor shortage, as the NYT wrote today, that could account at least partly for wait times even if there was plenty of money, couldn’t it? Did you account for the shortage in physicians, or is it all simply funding shortage to you?
I think it’s possible that there is more to it than simply ‘give us more money’, and I think it would be good to talk about that. So I started by asking some questions about funding.
I’m wondering if Obama’s funding requests are high enough if there’s a shortfall of cash. If his funding requests are met and it’s not enough, why aren’t his funding requests higher?
@12 The money quote: “So no, we can’t run around cutting funding to the VA. If we can’t afford the VA in the long term, then this conflict needs to be resolved before we invade a country based on a lie. Not after. A responsible party would have raised revenues to pay for this, instead of cutting taxes and giving corporations government subsidies.”
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The problem, of course, is that the GOP is not a responsible party but rather a gaggle of screaming toddlers who are irresponsible in everything they do. Not to mention their baldfaced lying about what they did.
@ 15
What medical care funding request for the VA has Obama requested that Congress did not provide?
This piece
http://www.nationaljournal.com.....s-20140520
spreads blame around, notes that funding went up from $100B in 2009 to $154B in 2014, and doesn’t say that Obama asked for funding he didn’t get.
The piece also points out that 37% of claims processing efforts in 2010-2012 were attributed to Agent Orange. Are you going to blame George W. Bush for that? Really?
This isn’t simply funding inadequacy. It’s far more problematic than that.
Boehner has not said that he wanted Shinseki fired. Of course he didn’t — he wanted Obama to look indecisive by not firing him. Of course, by now Obama DOES look indecisive.
This is going to be a horrible load for Dems to carry into 2016. Hilary’s been a big part of Obama’s administration so if she is nominated, the load will be even bigger, even though she had nothing to do with the VA. And it’s way too late for us to claim this was Bush’s doing. Of course it was, but that was 6 years ago, which is millennia in today’s ADD world.
re sloppy 16: “What medical care funding request for the VA has Obama requested that Congress did not provide?”
For someone who asks for, nay, DEMANDS, that others provide him with links for their declarations, you sure don’t take the time to look at the links you have been provided. If you had read the link to the article that I provided you with, you’d already know about the 21 BILLION $$$$$ that the Republican congress recently shorted the VA.
I proved you were a racist and now I have proved you to be a liar.
http://www.politicususa.com/20.....-math.html
Senate Republicans blocked a bill to increase VA funding by $21 billion this February. “The bill contained provisions that would restore the COLA for vets, and protect them from losing their benefits in the event of another government shutdown. It also would have authorized the construction of 27 new clinics and medical facilities, and it would have provided tuition assistance to post-9/11 vets.”
Senate Republicans Betray U.S. Vets By Blocking Veterans Benefits Bill
http://www.politicususa.com/20.....-bill.html
No where in this thread does one HA DUMMOCRETIN discuss the wasteful spending of the VA over the last 5 Obummer years.
http://veterans.house.gov/va-c.....estigation
http://news.investors.com/0520.....ys.htm?p=2
So typical of HA DUMMOCRETINS to focus on the minutia while the mack truck drives right on by.
THE VA was asked to clean up it’s act. Now DUMMOCRETINS wanted to throw more money to a wasteful org just like they do with the WA DC school system?
And the American Legion is screaming for more funding… http://www.legion.org/veterans.....gations-va
This is more throw the blame off Obummer when everyone knows including Chris Matthews this is Obummer’s problem… PLAIN AND SIMPLE! http://www.truthrevolt.org/new.....va-scandal
Typical… Place four links on an entry…
@21 Yes. It is typical. It’s been like that here at HA for years. It’s a defense against comment spam. How long did it take for you to figure this out?