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VA Fiasco Embarrasses Congressional Leadership You could almost see the steam rising from the heads of Republicans in Congress in July when committees in the House and Senate held hearings about the shortfall in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The hearings were called when the VA announced it was facing a $1 billion dollar shortfall in its 2005 budget and a $1.5 billion shortfall in its 2006 budget. The VA’s announcement came after the House of Representatives had already passed its version of the FY2006 VA bill and after Republicans in both the House and Senate had fought multiple attempts by the Democrats to increase VA funding. The Republicans had consistently been assured by VA Secretary Nicholson that there was plenty of money and they didn’t need the increases being urged by Democrats. That’s why the VA’s announcement of the shortfall hit Capitol Hill like a bombshell. One of the first hearings was that of the Military Qualify of Life and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Rep. James Walsh of New York. The seriousness of the situation was indicated by the presence of Rep. Jerry Lewis, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. When it was his turn to question Secretary Nicholson, Lewis informed him that VA’s “lack of forthrightness borders on stupidity,” strong words coming from a Republican Congressional leader to a Republican cabinet secretary. In addition, Rep. Chet Edwards, a Democrat, stated the VA knew about the shortfall in April, but hadn’t bothered to make Congress aware of the problem until late June. Secretary Nicholson’s response was while he probably should have let Congress know, the VA didn’t believe they had a problem because they could “work around the issue.” Nicholson was asked to what extent Iraq/Afghanistan veterans have contributed to the budget shortfall and he stated of the 145,000 new patients seen by VA doctors this year, about 40% of them are from Iraq/Afghanistan. He also said that only 13% of the projected $1.5 billion 2006 shortfall was due to Iraq veterans. According to Nicholson, the largest component of the budget shortfall was $446 million in long-term care costs. He said that older veterans cost about $1,000 more per veterans than those coming out of Iraq/Afghanistan. Even though admitting the shortfalls, Nicholson still was insisting that VA did not need additional funds for FY2005, claiming that patient care was not being affected and that they would get the funding they needed by taking money from the reserve fund and the maintenance and acquisition account. That, of course, did not sit well with members of Congress, who asked why, if he didn’t need that money for its originally intended purposes, Congress had given it to VA in the first place. The drama didn’t end there, however. Despite Nicholson’s denials that VA needed more money in FY2005, the political firestorm his revelations created resulted in the White House’s admission a short time later that they needed more money for both FY2005 and FY2006. However, the White House only asked for $975 million additional for 2005 and $1.98 billion above its original request for 2006. |
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