Well, in the one hand, VA is being a bit more forthcoming about turning over subpoenaed documents to congressional committees, so that would suggest a "no"; but on the other hand, they're still letting veterans linger in bureaucratic limbo until they die, betraying what is supposed to be their avowed core mission, so that would suggest a "yes".
The marble match for all the rubbers? The Bronx VA made over fifty-four million dollars "magically" disappear:
Employees in the purchasing department of a VA hospital in the Bronx, N.Y., had used government purchase cards like credit cards at least 2,000 times to buy prosthetic legs and arms for veterans.
Each time they swiped the cards, it was for $24,999. That was precisely one dollar below VA’s charging limit for purchase cards… [emphases added]
In two years.
I don't know what kind of black market exists for prosthetic limbs, or if the "prosthetic limbs" were just a cover for who knows what else these VA racketeers were purloining, and I don't actually know if they were doing so as part of a La Clinton Nostra operation, but the LCN stink is certainly infused throughout the length, breadth, and depth of this caper.
Aaaaaaaaaand its alibis:
When word reached Congress about the $54,435,743 worth of prosthetics bought under such odd circumstances over two years — the subject of an inspector general investigation announced Monday — lawmakers demanded details. But they were told there was no documentation.
VA officials had prepared to tell Congress that the records had been destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, according to previously undisclosed records, until a senior adviser in the Secretary’s office pointed out that the timing was wrong and the excuse wouldn’t hold up…
VA officials had received an inquiry from Congress in September 2012 about the Bronx payments, but a letter signed by former secretary Eric Shinseki did not go out until July 2013. The agency had prepared to say that the records had been transferred to VA’s medical center in Manhattan, where they were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy, documents obtained by the Post show.
But in reviewing the claim that the records had been destroyed, a senior adviser in Shinseki’s office was skeptical. “Gemma — this isn’t going to work,” the adviser wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Post. [emphases added]
You know how when a house gets so completely infested with pests - whether cockroaches or termites or spiders or wasps or whatever - that the family has to go stay at a hotel for a few days and the exterminators come in and set off multiple "bug bombs" to kill the infestation once and for all? That's what we've come to in Washington, D.C., ladies and gentlemen. No single or handful of high level resignations will fix the problem; no amount of "reform" will solve the problem. All these unconstitutional cancers need to be blown up, and the toxic debris trucked away to a political hazardous waste facility, and we need to start over within the bounds of the founding document whose boundaries should never been been exceeded in the first place.
Because this is what you get with socialism: Limitless greed, rampant corruption, and unfettered power madness.
Until We, The People are willing to truly and finally wean ourselves off of our Big Government addiction, return to the philosophy that the Founding Fathers promulgated, and stop electing Democrats (at minimum), we will continue to see bigger and bigger such scandals.
Period.
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