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As many of our honored veterans languish on fake waiting lists or are denied needed medical care, one must ask if the VA is properly using its funding provided by taxpayer money. Just like any business, expenditures should be evaluated on a regular basis to ensure solvency of the company. Unfortunately, unlike private businesses, the government is not accountable for its taxpayer dollar spending and has little accountability. However, when our veterans are suffering as a result, I think that it should be of the utmost priority to ensure that every taxpayer dollar allocated to veterans go directly to their health and wellbeing.
Recently, I read an analysis by Free Bacon about frivolous VA spending which is both an affront to our veterans and all those legally paying taxes in the United States. On the government’s official spending website, it showed the VA spent $1.3 billion in the past five years for “support” and “professional services.” When you read further and find out what these services are, you will be dumbfounded by the wastefulness of these programs.
First, millions were spent on PR for the VA to make them look more positive in the public eye. For example, in a series of 10 transactions, the VA awarded Woodpile Studios $5 million on 9/29/10, $1.7 million on 7/15/10, $1.7 million on 7/14/11 and another $1.8 million on 6/27/12 for the message campaign; while another contract for $2.9 million was awarded in 2010 for “marketing and advertising” to another company. The commercials ran in major cities during 2011 ESPN College bowl games and the Country Music Awards. They were designed to “increase awareness and confidence among the U.S. veteran population of the value and extent of VA services available to them.” It urged “family members to send their warriors to the VA.”
Plus millions of millions of dollars were spend for bureaucratic peer reviews. For example, a $6.3 million contract awarded in 2011, another $5.9 million contract in 2013, and another $1.7million contract in 2013, all of which were awarded to Ascellon Corp. during the past five years to conduct surveys to ensure Compliance. And these examples were just the tip of the iceberg.
Plus, costly “peer reviewed” programs included such monetary tallies as one for $15.3 million, one for $11.7 million, another for $12.5million, and still another for $12.2 million. Other contracts awarded during the current administration under “office support/professional service” included millions spent on “energy program development.” Due to an executive order signed by Obama in October 2009, the VA is required to make its facilities more energy efficient and sustainable.
By 2020, the VA’s goal is to increase its renewable energy consumption to 20 percent; a total of 183 green energy projects were awarded for VA facilities across the country. One such contract was for a Washington D.C.-based VA facility for nearly $1 million.
When you look at these expenditures, it makes you sick to learn that a recent VA audit showed over 100,000 Veterans are experiencing long wait times over 3 months for their healthcare. Obama once boasted the VA a triumph for government-run healthcare and used it as a model for Obamacare. If this is what we should expect from Obamacare, our health system is doomed.