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The VA Scandal and Obama’s “Swift Reckoning”

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On Wednesday, President threatened to veto the Veterans Affairs Accountability Act, calling the bill “counterproductive” because it would cause “a disparity in the treatment of one group of career civil servants.” Not surprising, government employee unions are opposed to the act.

It’s been over a year since the VA tragic mess was headline news. James Freeman of the WSJ writes that perhaps Mr. Obama is hoping Americans have forgotten about the scandal:

When the scandal was generating headlines last year, the President talked about accountability, his intolerance for VA misconduct and the public’s desire for a “swift reckoning.” But now apparently he reckons that the VA can function just fine while leaving most of its workforce untouched.

The Associated Press reported early in July that according to an internal report by the VA’s Health Eligibility Center “about 238,000 of the 847,000 veterans with pending applications for VA health care are likely deceased. The applications go back nearly two decades and some applicants may have died years ago, although there is no way to tell for sure when or why the person died, the VA said.”

As Mr. Freeman points out, “It’s hard to think of a more appalling government failure than the tragedy of veterans dying while federal workers review their applications for care.” Read more from Mr. Freeman here.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.