WASHINGTON — The official responsible for the problem-plagued disability compensation system at the Department of Veterans Affairs will resign early next year, the department announced Friday.In response, I give you Richard Allen Smith of VetsVoice (here)…
The official, Under Secretary Patrick W. Dunne, has run the Veterans Benefits Administration since 2006, a period in which the agency has been swamped by claims not only from wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans but also aging Vietnam veterans. The rise in the backlog of unprocessed claims has fueled bitter complaints from members of Congress and veterans’ advocates.
The benefits administration also came under fire this year when it was late issuing payments to colleges and students under the new G.I. Bill. In response, Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, ordered offices to open on a Saturday to make emergency payments to students.
When the G.I. Bill implementation resulted in epic FAIL, Dunne was responsible. When Veterans received benefits letters which incorrectly informed them that they had the fatal disease ALS, Dunne was responsible. Any SNAFUs with VA benefits since Dunne was sworn in as Undersecretary in October of 2008 were ultimately his responsibility.The only thing I will say in Dunne’s defense is that I can’t see how anyone could be successful when you have an agency run by both the execrable James Peake (who compared PTSD to football injuries here – nice guy), and the possibly-even-worse Jim Nicholson; under his “leadership,” it took 145-150 days to process disability payments (noted here).
Additionally, If you were to research Dunne's bio, you'd also find that between August 2006 and his appointment as Undersecretary, Dunne served as Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning. Placing that in context, this was the period when VA was planning to implement the policies which would drive the administration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. From start to finish, the utter failure of the Department of Veterans Affairs to administer education benefits to 21st century Veterans lies at the feet of Patrick W. Dunne.
Any one or two of the mishaps at the Veterans Benefits Administration could be attributed to a lowly incompetent staffer. But the exorbitant nature of repeated failure occurring under the incompetent leadership of Patrick Dunne can only be attributed to a leader who was derelict in correcting the deficiencies of the led. In my humble opinion, Dunne should have been canned for the G.I. Bill fiasco alone.
Oh, and did I mention that, under Dubya’s VA, Dunne’s predecessor Daniel Cooper thought that Bible study was more important than doing his job (here, with a particularly ridiculous remark by Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History)?
Starting one war based on lies while short-changing another (and leaving a future administration a huge mess as a result) is one level of evil incompetence. Thoroughly abusing those who have paid the price as a result once they have returned to this country on top of that is almost too monstrous to describe.
Republicans have questioned an addition to the bill that provides for $100 million in extra Medicare subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." Landrieu's state of Louisiana, of course, was hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. GOPers have dubbed the provision the "new Louisiana Purchase" saying it helped buy off Landrieu's vote.So clever the Repugs are, boys and girls…
Oh, by the way, it should be noted (here) that Kyl requested over $232 million in congressional earmarks for fiscal year 2008-2009, more than doubling Landrieu’s subsidy here (so, then, if that means that she is the recipient of the “new Louisiana Purchase,” is Kyl guilty of “Arizona Avarice?”).
Ah, the eternal campaign. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway seems to have surrendered to it: “While we may technically be out of the recession, unemployment is now in the double digits for the first time in many Americans’ memory and trending upwards. Obama’s sitting in the White House and, rightly or wrongly, he gets the blame. It’s actually rather remarkable that he’s doing as well as he is. I credit Bush Fatigue. People were so glad to see his predecessor leave office that Obama still seems good by comparison. But that won’t last forever.”9/11 was an intelligence failure on the part of the alleged adults who were tasked to defend us by virtue of election to office, dumbass (putting the asterisk next to that in Dubya’s case, I realize). And I didn’t invent the credit default swap, leveraging debt upon more debt and trying to make money off it in the bargain. And I sure as hell wasn’t responsible for offshoring our jobs and failing to invest in our economy.
Well, there he’s gone and mentioned the unmentionable. It brings to mind a debate we were having eight short years ago about presidential legacies, a new administration’s inheritances and pinning the blame on the donkey or the elephant. In that case, you may recall, the eventual answer was clear: 9/11 wasn’t “Clinton’s” or “Bush’s” — it was all of ours. So too, I suspect, is the economic morass of 2009.
But of course, as noted here, Harshaw is no stranger to acting as a stenographer for conservative talking points, so this is merely more of the same.
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