Senator Patty Murray introduced a bill last April to increase funding for the Veterans Administration because her calculations showed the program was seriously underfunded. The bill was voted down primarily because Jim Nicholson, the VA Administrator since February 2005, wrote a letter in April 2005 saying, “I can assure you that VA does not need emergency supplemental funds in FY 2005 to continue to provide the timely, quality service that is always our goal… But certainly for the remainder of this year, I do not foresee any challenges that are not solvable within our own management decision capability.” Link.
Yesterday, the VA announced that the budget for providing health care for veterans was underfunded by a billion dollars. It turns out that their projections used to respond to Murray in April were based on 2002 data that was collected well before we started the Iraq war.
Murray had this to say about the VA announcement: “This shortfall results from either deliberate misdirection or gross incompetence by this administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.” Murray, sounding quite pissed, confronted Nicholson yesterday afternoon. Here’s a transcript from an NPR broadcast this morning:
Murray: We had the information. We knew there was a problem. The VA was saying there wasn’t. Okay, we’re here now. Do you think there is a problem?
Nicholson: I think that’s uh, you know, that’s a matter of definition. We thought we had a situation that we could handle and I uh think that we were right. Uh…
Murray: But do we have a problem now?
Nicholson: For ‘05?
Murray: Correct.
Nicholson: We certainly don’t have a crisis. No.
Murray: Do we have a problem?
Nicholson: Well I suppose uh…
Murray: How much is it?
Nicholson: We’re talking about a billion dollars.
Murray reintroduced her April bill to increase funding for the VA by 1.9 billion dollars. I don’t know if she’ll get that much, but maybe she’ll get the 1 billion needed for 2005. My guess is that because the Republicans are so opposed to raising taxes to pay for this war, whatever the amount is, we’ll just add to the deficit and pass the bill onto the next generation.
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