The President made a decision to expand eligibility for services, secured the extra funding he thought he needed, and then… what, just assumed the job was done since he got more funding?
I guess he can be forgiven, given that his base seems to think that funding levels are the be-all and end-all, and that every failure can be attributed to insufficient funding. Yet if most federal programs are underfunded, why keep asking for new ones? If the bureaucracy is unaccountable to elected officials, why expand it?
the reason the President is directly responsible is because he made these decisions knowing that he couldn’t handle the increased workload. But also figuring his base would stay loyal to him if he just made plausible sounding excuses. Problem is, a good part of his base is the media, and they think he’s an idiot now.
Hilarious. 80% of the posts here attack me, 20% attempt to grapple with the President’s serious lack of accountability problem.
It’s got to be frustrating seeing the first non-southern Democratic President since JFK march steadily into irrelevancy by his own actions. A “bystander in his own administration” as the media puts it.
The whistleblower who wrote in the NY Times this week sent letters to the IG. The IG, incidentally, is appointed by the President. I wonder why the IG would take no action? Oh wait, in Obama’s first days an IG did take action to uncover corruption. Obama promptly thanked him by firing him.
What’s fascinating about the Gerald Walpin case is that the President took a personal interest in a fairly obscure part of the bureaucracy when a major celebrity supporter of his was found to have misused Americacorps funds.
Strange that that particular issue was brought to his attention, and he took decisive action, rather than him just doing what he usually does, letting the bureaucracy do its thing.
He said this after firing Gerald Walpin:
The president wrote that “it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General. That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector general.”
He acted with alacrity there. Meanwhile, despite ignoring VA corruption for three years, that particular IG is still on the job. It appears that the only way for the President to lose confidence in you is if you actually find corruption.
I have some experience working for the VA system. The middle management layer of VA facilities (at least up to the main local administrators, and probably further) is the finest and clearest example of the Peter Principle in existence.
The problem is that competent administrators in the VA system can probably get a very similar job elsewhere in the industry for twice the money, so turnover is high and anyone with their head even peeking out of their ass will get dragged up a level. The turnover itself makes it hard to get anything done; in the five years I worked for a VA nursing home there were four different administrators and stretches of months in between them when we really didn’t have one.
I don’t know what to do about any of that, exactly. The VA will never be able to attract executives like the rest of the industry can, and they’re going to be left with bad decision makers at the local and middle levels. I think keeping themselves separate makes the problem worse, and they’d be better off transitioning to being a payer and not trying to run their own separate facilities.
“I’m not angry, Barack,” sighs adaher, voice dropping an octave into the paternal register. POTUS meanwhile staring down at the buffed toe of his Balmoral, eyebrows knotted, trying not to cry. “Just disappointed.”
I think that makes the most sense. Why have a self-contained system? Just put vets on Medicare if they have combat related injuries. Those without combat injuries could be given special subsidies to buy private health insurance.
Nah, just pissed and amused at the same time. How many times can you use the same excuse?
How much you want to bet he will break out the exact same excuse for something else before the year is out and probably about five more times before his term is over?
I mean, at least have some balls. GWB was nothing if not brazen about his screwups.
Why? How does that make anything better? It’s somehow okay to fuck up massively, maybe even doom thousands to an untimely and undeserved death or something, as long as you don’t ever acknowledge it or only do so while cracking wise? How and why do you think that’s somehow more preferable than what you claim President Obama is doing? :dubious:
Typical conservative bullshit: if there’s a problem, let the market handle it.
The whole damned point of the VA isn’t to have doctors on hand to treat the sniffles and whatnot; it’s to specialize in the problems that many veterans have that are not as well handled by general medicine. Think about orthopedics and how the VA is the nation’s leader in prosthetics. Or treating the unique diseases that result from Agent Orange, or all the more unusual other problems that your average trademan, office worker, or factory worker don’t usually get. But thank you, Paul Ryan, for suggesting that we give vouchers to veterans. That lets us know how much you care.
It is truly someone as stupid as you who can do the unique thing of making people defend the VA at this time. But when you go on these fact-free jags – saying that the VA IG is “still on the job” after ignoring corruption for three years, for example, despite the fact that the guy who was IG in 2009 actually retired in 2013 – why the hell should anyone take anything you say seriously? Of course 80% of the posts here are about you, because there’s a 105% chance that you get something wrong in every post you make.
I’ll bite on the last one. What has the President done to make the government work better. Do you think it’s working better now than it was 10 years ago? 20 years ago?
In order for the party of government to win the fundamental debate of our times, they have to prove that government can work. The last 14 years have shown that government is broken, and I’m not talking about the elected branches. I’m talking about the federal bureaucracy. It doesn’t work, it’s incompetent, and no one can manage it. In the face of that, how can any Democrat call for expanding it with a straight face?
Bill Clinton at least knew that in order for Americans to have faith in activist government, he had to make it work, and he spent a lot of effort on making it work. It was one of the major themes of his Presidency. Bush re-broke it and Obama has continued Bush’s insoucient attitude towards government efficiency.
Hardly. There’s still plenty of hope out there that Hillary will run and win, keeping the Pubs from the White House for another 8 years. And since you’re such a fan of her husband, I’m sure you will be relieved when she does, right?