VA efforts to support our troops include forgetting about them in the budget.

[Biggirl]

How the fuck can they be so stupid? Some sources say the knew they were wrong but went on to assure Congress that the budget was fine last year.

Incompetence? Evilness? An effort to hide exactly how bad the budget deficit is? What the everloving fu. . .

Uh oh. Outrage fatigue. I give up.

[merrily]

It isn’t the VA, it’s the president. His office sets the budget.

Here’s what the GAO said about it, in Feb.

VA lacked a methodology for making the health care management efficiency savings assumptions reflected in the President’s budget requests for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and, therefore, was unable to provide us with any support for those estimates. VA officials told us that the management efficiency savings assumed in these requests were savings goals used to reduce requests for a higher level of annual appropriations in order to fill the gap between the cost associated with VA’s projected demand for health care services and the amount the President was willing to request.

http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-06-359R

I love GAO reports.

[Biggirl]

@merrily

It isn’t the VA, it’s the president. His office sets the budget.

Here’s what the GAO said about it, in Feb.

http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-06-359R

I love GAO reports.

So it’s true. Everything really is Bush’s fault.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Biggirl

So it’s true. Everything really is Bush’s fault.

Yup, before HE showed up, we were living eternally without hunger, disease or poverty. DAMN that Laura… and that snake and apple!

[Little_Nemo]

Yup, before HE showed up, we were living eternally without hunger, disease or poverty. DAMN that Laura… and that snake and apple!

During his term, Reagan used to ask “Are you better off now that you were four years ago?” You’ll notice Bush doesn’t dare try that. Things weren’t perfect on January 19, 2001 but they were better than they are now - and a large portion of that decline is due to George Bush.

[silenus]

I love the quote about “assumptions based on pre-Iraq conditions.” You mean like “We won’t have to treat people with traumatic wounds very often.” Or “How many veterans have been blown up, lately?” There’s a freaking war going on and the VA bases the budget on peacetime conditions? Heads had better roll over this, and from a considerable height.

[Squink]

Here’s a concrete example:
Center for war-related brain injuries faces budget cut

Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.
…
The Brain Injury Center, devoted to treating and understanding war-related brain injuries, has received more money each year of the war — from $6.5 million in fiscal 2001 to $14 million last year. Spokespersons for the appropriations committees in both chambers say cuts were due to a tight budget this year.

[Boyo_Jim]

Repairing brains? They spend billions trying to make the rest of us act brainless. They seem to get a pretty good return on that investment.