Here in Colorado, the new Aurora VA hospital has become another in a
long line of government spending cesspools. The $600-million 184-bed
facility is now estimated to cost at least $1.7 billion after a reckless
parade of design changes, cost overruns and mismanagement — and may not
be ready until 2017. “Accountability”? Pfffft. The head of the VA’s
Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction responsible for the
waste was allowed to resign with a full federal pension and retention of nearly $60,000 in bonuses earned during the fiasco.
In Colorado Springs, a sparkling new “cutting edge” VA outpatient
clinic opened last year on the promise of reducing wait times. But
according to the Colorado Springs Gazette,
“11.5 percent of veteran appointments for care in Colorado Springs are
delayed by 30 days or more,” which is “up from 7 percent” before the
$10-million facility opened.
What’s next? More congressional hearings, more
grandstanding, another “reform” campaign, more posturing in front of
cameras, and more screwed-over vets.
Throwing more money and platitudes at the VA to cover up its deadly
scandals is a bipartisan Beltway recipe for failure. Recently retired
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., one of the few to object to last year’s kabuki
“VA reform,” was right. “The culture is one of looking good, protecting
those in the VA and not protecting our veterans,” he said at the time.
“You have to have a bill that fixes that. I don’t believe this is going
to do it.”
I have driven by the new VA construction site. It's apparent even to a novice with few skills in building that the VA hopsital under construction could never possibly be built for 600 million dollars. When do we hold our government responsible for this type of management? When do we FIRE people for being inept wasting our tax dollars?
Should we just sweep it under the rug and say, it's no big deal as its so little compared to government spending overall?
The thought that comes to mind for me is that we can't have it both ways. If we want to maintain an attitude that government should not be allowed to do anything because they are all fuck ups, we will ensure that we never have competent government workers. We've had good people there who watched out for the tax payer, and they have always been kicked out for doing a good a job and holding contractors accountable. Undoubtedly, Alan Derschowitz would say we shouldn't question a congress person who helps get a good inspector general fired just because the congress person has a long time friendship with a government contractor.
ReplyDeleteWithin a very short period of time, we dumped an enormous amount of seriously ill vets into a system that was not designed to provide so much care. I'm not remotely saying the VA has handled it well, but it's like everything else in this country, we can't plan, only react, because planning ahead costs money. Honestly Lou, I am as frustrated as you by this stuff. These contractors are big donors and they pay for the right to get exorbitant contracts with little oversight.
Yes corruption in government, payoff's, Favors, just what our government seems to have degenerated into.
ReplyDeleteThink term limits would limit the payoff's, sweetheart deals or just be shorter term? Taking all money out of elections and give each candidate a fixed amount to campaign with? A limited time ti campaign, 90/120 days before an election?
You are right, the VA planned for nothing. All the while the hospital in Colorado is a billion short of completion.
Walk away and veterans are not taken care of.
Downsize it and veterans face longer wait times.
Finish it and the taxpayers take it in the shorts while no one in government is held accountable.
It's not the people at the bottom but the management from Washington on down that is flawed. When do we address that little problem?
Well, I actually like the idea that we take the money out and we pretty much agree there. My reluctance with term limits remains. In midterms, only the most fervent vote, which means that we get a situation like we have which Gil Scott Heron nailed when he said "Because it seems as though we've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters, not even 26% of the American people, but 26% of the registered voters form a mandate or a landslide."
DeleteI think you and probably both agree it's a big problem that people don't vote and I tend to think that for conservatives, (perhaps not in your eyes) it's worse when more people do vote because they vote for social change rather than upholding the laws we already have. So, to me, even though I like the idea of guys like Reid and McConnell not being allowed to stick around for so long, I'm not sure I'm sold on the idea that throwing them out only to be replaced by a small but politically rabid section of America will really bring any improvement. I'm not sure what the fix is.
That said, Reagan's axiom has become a self fulfilling prophecy, we say that government IS the problem as the answer to everything we don't like. We could use good leadership, but what we keep getting are bloviates. I just saw a soundbite wherein Ted Cruz said "Let's abolish the IRS and put all 120 odd thousand IRS employees on the southern border." Yeah, I'm sure you can rebut that with some Obama soundbite, but it doesn't change my view. The problem seems like it's at the top but I think it runs a lot deeper.
The VA makes a perfect case for not having single payer insurance with the government at the helm.
DeleteThe problem is worse than you state. In a general election we are lucky to get 50% of eligible voters to vote. That means 26% of eligible voters elect the president.
The only thing term limits solve is the good ol boy/girl game. The upside is a limited amount of time a person like Sharon Engle could be in office which may or may not be a good thing. I do know, the leadership entrenched in Washington is well past their discard date.
Wish I had enough background to make a pertinent comment on this one. I do however have the knowledge and qualifications to comment on a pretty much identical situation here with one exception, our Vets.
DeleteMedical health services here in Australia are a shambles, non medical staff outnumbering the Docs and Nurses everywhere. The paper shufflers make the system revolve in ever diminishing circles until the so called system implodes into its own anus. Cost overruns, supervision non existent and cronyism are all rife. But then is this not the way with governments everywhere? A government charged with spending tax payers money will be less frugal than if the members of government are spending their own assets.
Where we differ in Aust is that the Vets are pampered to the extent it is embarrassing to be counted as one or their number. Nothing is too good for us so called heroes. Transport is laid on if we have a medical appointment. Overnight accommodation if required and there is absolutely no limit on the level of care we are given. So many ( including myself) qualify only because we were in a designated area of conflict for a certain number of days. That we were not in many cases involved in combat is immaterial.
I suspect perhaps you have similar problems but public opinion will not allow rectification of the difficulties. I certainly have no valid claim(in my opinion) but I appear to be a single voice in the wilderness in trying to persuade other so called heroes to have the system changed.
Hope this helps you feel a little less isolated in your despair at a system so obviously out of control, it is beyond redemption.
Cheers from Aussie
The VA has been one of the best health systems in the world for decades. It is vastly overwhelmed right now. Besides the 32,000 know casualties of our 10+ year excursions into the middle east it is estimated that as many as 250,000 additional veterans and active military need care due to emotional wounds of those conflicts. The VA isn't bad, it isn't large enough to handle the load it has been given. A study on the cost of war published in 2011 estimated that VA problems will continue and not peak until 30-40 years after the end of the wars. These people need lifetime care. Total cost 1 trillion dollars. And it's all Obama's fault isn't it Lou.
DeleteKingston.
DeleteSo it is with government. The real problem is it's not their money hence it doesn't matter how or what it's spent. A shame we do not treat our vetrans with the dignity they deserve. Instead we put them in lines and maybe in 30-90 days they may get to see a doctor. Do we seek to fix the problems identified numerous times in the last several years? No nothing is done. No one is fired for incompetence. No one is fired for ineptness. No one is demoted from their lofty position. As with the IRS and GAO, we give them a retirement and a lofty pension.
As to you Rick, I do believe if Obama Nuc'ed Texas you would be the first to justify it. Yes the current situation belongs to the commander in chief. How many people did he fire? How many people did he put in place to correct known problems and deficiencies? How much extra money did he direct to the VA to build the system. None. Is O responsible for all the people needing medical assistance, HELL NO. He's responsible for all those affected while he's in office. He alos is responsible for the dismal performance of the VA system. He's had 6 years to fix the system, affect change, yet he has done nothing.
Golf anyone?
As a vet you should be outraged instead of making excuses but that's expected when a person puts a political party above those that served.
Funny enough I have spent considerable amount of time pondering that very question. My short answer is that I don’t think it will happen… It won’t happen because we have become well-conditioned and as Max points out, we tend to be a reactionary lot… lazy would be a good general term. Besides that, there is a segment of the population who see and wish for the complete collapse of capitalism and soviet style production while others ignore yet another segment of history and openly embrace modern monetary theory, fractional reserve banking and monopoly run fiat currencies…
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I consider quite ironic is the fact that the progressive movement prides itself on change… sometimes it would seem, change for little or no reason but they are driven by the need for change…. Yet…. When presented with program after program where historical results show that problems are worse as a result, the battle cry is that they will never give up any hard won concessions. The result of course is the need to pour good money after bad to band aid over problems in poorly conceived, poorly designed, poorly implemented and poorly run programs that should be scrapped.
The Federal Reserve is an topic that comes up often. People will argue adamantly for the structure, yet speak with absolute venom about the very people who created it without once asking what the motivation and dubious method for its creation was in the first place. We trust the central banking fractional reserve system to provide price stability yet readily acknowledge that it has so completely distorted the asset market that a person at the lower end of the income range has no hope of owning a home based on the normal and sound lending practice of 2.5 to 3 times earnings. We defend its ability above all others to manage the (a) medium of exchange that the simple act of providing that facility has somehow become 40% of an economy? People have hung on to its premise as being the only valid one when a young person can no longer plan a retirement based on savings and is instead at the mercy of various markets of exchange pitting their skills or choice of money manager against worldwide experts looking to take that money away from them. Banks are now starting to charge people for deposits because in this world of fractional reserve distortion, money becomes a liability. Switzerland has just issued the world’s first negative rate bond as we embrace the cashless society with open arms run by a private, for profit corporation given monopoly power and enforcement protection at taxpayer and saver expense, by our very own government…
Lastly of course is the oft stated comment of “We have to be willing to pay for what we want.” I would suggest that most of ‘What we want’ has been more a function of political chicanery and vote swapping than anything that looks like merit based consideration or popular support… that, and the push for their own purposes by both the left and right to centralize every aspect of an individual’s life regardless of the cost to present and future generations.
As I said at the top, we have been well conditioned, certainly with 50 years of social engineering in our schools to believe that the state is our savour and one hundred years that has turned Social Security from a supplement to a complete retirement resource for many. The divergence from self-governance can only lead to more dependence, more centralization and all of that costs money…. Your money.
We don’t hear much about the ‘Silent Majority’ any more…. Head down, hardworking, even if a bit bigoted, generally live and let live…. They are all dying now… some say good riddance… they saved way to much of what they earned and they were just a burr under the saddle of the statist anyway….
Who are you trying to kid Rick. The VA has seldom lived up to its responsibility. His is a quick timeline by CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/23/politics/va-scandals-timeline/index.html
ReplyDeleteMany of today’s problems stem from two things… the overwhelming need to centralize and a digital records system that must have been contracted to the same cronies that designed the ACA website. The consolidation of course started under Bush who like most other Washington elite is a central government statist. This trend takes patient care and doctor inputs and puts them at the bottom of a long chain of bureaucracy.
As far as the patient records system which is no doubt the forerunner for the future of Americas healthcare system…. It is an abysmal failure both technically and financially resulting in hidous service for the people who need the system.
Deloitte's report also highlighted shortcomings in OIT's organizational structure, which was centralized in recent years. That led to an influx of management and administrative functions even as IT continued to be understaffed. Beyond that problems exist at all levels of management. In the words of the December 2012 Deloitte report, reportedly commissioned by acting assistant secretary for information and technology and acting CIO Stephen Warren, found several trouble zones in VA's OIT. Among them are a disconnect between facility staff and leadership, low data quality, a poor organizational structure that leads to inefficient resource deployment, duplicative functions across multiple organizational pillars, no standardized processes or supporting technology, a lack of customer understanding of how OIT works, and the fact that many OIT organizations are not measuring the right metrics.
"Right now, the personality of the people at the top is just toxic," said one VA source with nearly a decade of experience at the agency. "From Day One, it's been dysfunctional, but right now, it's circular firing squad stuff."
One more thought about spending and problem solving in government…
ReplyDeleteI don’t know how many of you have spent any time in Japan but one interesting phenomena among polite society is the act of bowing. Now the act is such that one person upon meeting bows to the other… the other responds and the first responds to that bow by bowing again… the second person responds with yet another bow and this can continue for quite some time…. Humorous to watch but because neither wants to show disrespect to the other by being the first to stop, they continue.
It reminds me of all the conversation about centrists… meeting in the middle and compromising issues for compromise sake… The solution to very few problems exist in the middle and as with the bowing niceties in Japan, few problems are really addressed and we just keep going round and round and round.
And yet, when a Democratic majority is elected and solves things to their liking without Republican support, I tend to believe you don't like that either. The premise that everyone who doesn't see the world as you is a statist has become tired rhetoric. I preached the same stuff at one time myself. It's convenient, as all labels are, but nonetheless inaccurate.
DeleteFact is, I have never been a partisan… from your perspective I am a hack but the fact is I have always looked at issues 1) based on their foundation in the constitution and 2) relative merits. Just because I find most democratic programs to be, in the long run, denigrating to the health of a society and counterproductive to human and social development says more about the kind of people who think up these policies than my voter registration card.
DeleteFact is, I would have considerably more respect for the ‘purported’ positions of democrats if they were actually able to 1) concede that a program has failed so miserably that it should be scraped and/or started over 2) not continuously hold out their hands asking for more money when it isn’t always a money problem.
A hundred years of progressive policy has lead me to believe that other than enlarging the control of a population, progressives have little real concern for poverty, education, health development or prosperity of a population... It might sound tired to you but it is fairly clear to me that the progressive push has always been to consolidate power and with it control.... P.S... I'm not particularly armoured with Republican tactics and rhetoric as a closer look shows their goals not to be very dissimilar to that of their Democratic rivals. All in all, it is the people who repeatedly vote for these clowns and programs that will lose in the long run...
Like the 12 million a month that the GOP backs in payments to Brazil to entice that countries government not to raise tariffs on US products… Is it really the function of a government to rob, through higher taxes, the citizens of its country to pay the government of another country not to raise taxes on its own people?
You say that “And yet, when a Democratic majority is elected and solves things to their liking without Republican support”. While I will readily admit that we live in a representative republic and our elected ‘representatives’ do our bidding… I wonder in a referendum type of vote just much of that ‘represented’ population would have voted for our borders to be thrown wide open, or a government that is so unabashedly bold as to the Americans that they have no privacy from our version of the Stazi and its enforcement arm the Gestapo… or carrying out armed training in our cities… or for that matter just how many would have voted for this fiasco called the ACA… cause I am sure that they wouldn’t have voted for a single payer solution.
Perhaps it is time to vote for people who will actually consider the people they represent rather than some partisan hack that cares little about you except for your vote…. While the majority of people who vote democratic aren’t, in and of themselves, statists… the term is never the less quite accurate of the elite that they vote for.
TS,
DeleteTo be clear, I don't consider you a hack and I mean that sincerely. Willliam yes, you no. And for your second para there, I have to admit I agree wholeheartedly. There are many, many programs that have outlived their purpose to the point that they are simply abused and are indeed nothing more than a handout. I would also agree that Democrats are horrible at prioritizing. I think they could still advocate for the working man, if that is what they say they want to do, and cut wasteful programs. But, as you lightly point out, the Republicans have their programs as well. No elected official wants to see funding to their district cut. If every program that costs more than say 20 million dollars had a setting sun clause, that would at least be something.
You make an interesting point about referendum. In the last mid terms, several states had referendums on minimum wage, legalization of pot and so on. Voters voted one way on the referendums and then voted in candidates who were guaranteed to oppose the referendums. And therein lies part of the problem to me. Even when I do sympathize for your black and white views of what the constitution allows or doesn't allow, I keep coming back to the same issue which is that people don't want to live that rigidly. The government is not forcing the people to be progressive, they are voting for it themselves. What is the difference between a liberal who won't follow the constitution versus some Koch elected lacky? functionally, there is no difference.
What I hear in your posts is that you want people to think differently. You want everyone to have the same reverence that you do for the constitution, and they don't. Hayek talked about it in the Road to Serfdom. How do you handle such people? Prevent them from voting? Honestly, I think the Founding Fathers never intended for power to be distributed that far down, but it has. Look at what's going on right now. All the Republican POTUS contenders have gone out in the past week and talked about income inequality while not a freaking one of them every mentioned that before. Am I really supposed to believe they give a shit about that? I don't, but it's a sign that referendum is bad for those who believe in strict constitutionalism.
People today vote what's in their own best interest.
Delete1. Medicare.
2. SS.
3. Subsidies for the ACA.
4. Medicaid.
5. SNAP or your food program of choice.
6. Free cell phone.
7. Reduced taxes.
What self respecting American would vote to limit, change or end their favorite program? 60% of Americans get something from the Federal Government from student aid to SNAP benefits. That's 60% of people voting for their own pocket book.
We have long left the country where people voted for what's best for the country and reduced it to ME, ME, ME.
"We have long left the country where people voted for what's best for the country and reduced it to ME, ME, ME."
DeleteOn a big scale, I agree this attitude is prevalent in every demographic. But on the other hand, I look at the first five programs there and I see attempts to correct situations that society has collective deemed to be a problem. Of course the constitution doesn't call for taxation to support the poor and the old. But then people feel bad when they see others suffering. That's the problem when emotion interferes with straight logic.
At one time benefits were limited to a timeframe so people were not dependent on the government. Not so much today. As for SS, that has been expanded well beyond the original intent. I have a nephew that is 35 years old. he's worked 1 day in his life at a BK. Didn't like it and is now claiming SS disability on his fathers account.
DeleteThe ACA, speaks for itself.
And the story goes on. Everyone votes for their own pocketbook, no one wants to lose what's theirs..
@Lou
Delete“What self-respecting American”... hum... probably most... the problem here is that we have been trained and guided as white Americans to be self-loathing and everyone else to be dependent. I do have some hope… at least for the near term. We have a lot of young people who see the government as being something that should not be depended on for personal survival and there are an awful lot of people, who, if presented with a clear and dedicated path to solving our debt problem would endure a certain level of pain… but they are of course wary… any time government manages to had a fee for the privilege of your citizenship, it is seldom rescinded…
@ Max
What appears to you to be a paradox in voting is, IMHO, nothing more than a group of people showing some hopes, dreams and desires wrapped in the priorities of reality. If you ask me ‘do I think that pot should be legalized’, I would give you an emphatic YES! Yes for a variety of reasons; But if you ask me to pick a leader that will give me legalized pot or fix the issues of debt, rule of law and education, I will pick the later issues as being considerably more important. The war on drugs will die an unceremonious death (I hope) but I am positive that our finances and real education needs all the focus it can get… or we might as will all go smoke a joint.
“And therein lies part of the problem to me. Even when I do sympathize for your black and white views of what the constitution allows or doesn't allow, I keep coming back to the same issue which is that people don't want to live that rigidly. The government is not forcing the people to be progressive, they are voting for it themselves.”
The only thing the constitution prohibits of the people is aggression against each other. It was REALLY wide open as to what states and the people could do and the 14th amendment curtailed some of the states ability to rest self-governance away from people. It’s not the constitution that constrains people…. As a point of curiosity could you list the constraints put on you by the constitution that you and a qualified number of likeminded individuals could not change? I would suggest that you could rewrite the constitution with the complete version of the communist manifesto if you really had the popular support to do so. Fact is, you depend on an elected majority to pass law that you like… problem is, even if the vote were unanimous, they are only supposed to pass law that passes constitutional muster. This is a problem with the way justices are appointed.. but that is another subject.
Without that anchor and with the ever bolder edicts put forth by our elected officials and an ever more irrelevant Supreme Court, the rule of law is inching ever more closely to the rule of man...
Your comment about people not wanting to live that rigidly is an interesting one. What you mean to say of course is that people who think like you don’t want to be constrained by people like me… but it is perfectly fine for those same constrains to be put on me… Anyone with a dimple of a brain can see the intolerance that progressives have for otherwise good values just because they are rooted in someone else’s religion… because make no mistake, liberalism is a religion… Surely you can see the hypocrisy and the danger of that just as you can see the danger and damage of forced segregation.
Continued >>>>
Progressives have systematically dismantled the ability for people to live their own lives because generally speaking, the constitution only restrained aggression leaving most every other action open for people to pursue. From the 17th amendment that used a shotgun to kill a mouse to the grotesque redefinition of what constitutes ‘public accommodation’ progressives have instituted policies that constrained people… not freed them… and all without a constitutional mandate.
DeleteThis brings me to the principles of Statehood and the right of association. There are a lot of people who have strong views about a variety of things. Understanding that, states were always supposed to have the latitude to be different from each other but within the constraints of the US Constitution.(The 14th amendment fixed the only flaw in that relationship as far as I am concerned) In Texas for instance, some folk have very strong views about alcohol and they vote their particular municipality or county ‘dry’… no bars, no liquor stores and no public consumption. They voted that for themselves… They didn’t want it for religious reasons or because of the headaches and problems drinking establishments bring or the holdup targets liquor stores present. That doesn’t stop the next county over from being a little Las Vegas. This is precisely why the one size fits all approach of centralized ‘rule’ is, to me, so imperfect that in any real sense of a free society it is destine to fail. Interestingly enough these counties haven’t seen much legal challenge as it was voted for by the people who live there … I wonder what would happen if it was a gay who wanted to open a bar…
This process is being played out in Indiana…. This is to state mandated integration what the civil rights act should have been to government mandated segregation. There is nothing constitutional about the public accommodation laws … unless you define public as something provided by the state with taxpayer money… like public transit or in case of ‘oldin’ times, road houses, which the government no longer finances . Because these laws have no foundation in either the constitution or principle we end up with lawyers playing circle jerk with society. Case in point: the ACLU.. that wonderful defender of freedom has intervened in these three cases… tell me what is wrong with the process and why these yahoos deserve to make a living in the USA.
Four men go into a restaurant.. They are part of a local Nazi group and have swastika pins on their shirt lapels. The restaurant owner asks them to remove the pins.. They refuse… the restaurant owner asks them to leave, they refuse and he calls the police. The ACLU takes up that case and sues the business owner and wins.. the owner is bankrupt and loses his livelihood. Later the ACLU takes up cause against these groups as hate groups… and wins. The ACLU turns its guns back to a restaurant and sues because it refused to turn away a newly pronounce hate group … and wins… and you know the rest of the story when the cake baker refused service based on a moral ground….
Laws can never keep up with the evolution of society’s tolerance for one behaviour or growing intolerance for another and should not even try… but some people will always, like Jim Crow, attempt to force their social values on society at large by engaging the force of government to do their bidding.
I don’t want you to believe what I believe, but people damned well better get their head around the idea that law matters.
All of this is ground covered. The TEA party has been talking about this for six years.
ReplyDeleteOf course nothing will change if more progressives are elected from both parties. Fed, IRS, VA, immigration, base line budgeting, yada, yada, yada, we've been going over and over, and over this for years.
Max forgets that the Founders placed a little phrase "We the people" in our original documents. But he still blindly considers them bigots because they were old white men. King wants to disarm us because he believes we are wealthy and so advanced as a society. Ric meanwhile rails for a modern version of wage and price controls. Figuring this time "smarter" progressives will run already proven failed boilerplate socialist policy better.
It's all about limiting government pookie.
The problem though, William, is that We The People who vote in general elections tend to think a little differently than We The People who vote in the mid terms. In a sense, it is two different America's, at the least, it's two pretty different outlooks on life. As I said in another comment, when the word progressive is used to describe everything you dislike, it becomes a hollow epithet that really means nothing.
DeleteIf it makes you feel any better Max I don't consider you a progressive. No you're much more concerned with control by the elite. Those smarter than the population that elects them.
Delete