Reagan's Dept. of Veterans Affairs is now costing us 60 Billion a year!

[sofia]

i was going thru the 2012 budget and was surprised to see this Department, added by Reagan...now spends 60 billion!

Jimmy Carter's baby...the Dept of Education...now spends 77 Billion.

Those two fairly recent Depts add up to 137 Billion we can eliminate immediately.

Throw in agriculture at 25 B....HUD at 48 B.....Health/Human Service at 80 B...Energy at 30 B...Transportation at 14 B...Interior at 12 B....Labor at 13 B

Then, we can start REALLY saving money by bringing troops home, ending foreign aid....and means-testing SS and Medicaid until we can phase them out eventually...

[Carehn]

what does this dept do? I suspect the same as the rest of them, nothing.

[sofia]

what does this dept do? I suspect the same as the rest of them, nothing.

you must not support the troops then! ;)

[eduardo89]

The VA should be abolished and troops should be given vouchers to get private health care. It's ridiculous that the VA employs over 280,000 People to provide crappy care to veterans. Also, I think their budget is $90 billion nowadays.

A

[wannaberocker]

Lol recently i was listening to a radio show and the host said "we should eliminate the department of edu". So a caller gives him a call and says "if you eliminate the dept of edu , how would our children learn and be educated"? the radio show host said "just like they did before jimmy carter". Most people think the dept of edu has been here since the birth of this nation and dont realize that jimmy started it.

[XNavyNuke]

Lol recently i was listening to a radio show and the host said "we should eliminate the department of edu". So a caller gives him a call and says "if you eliminate the dept of edu , how would our children learn and be educated"? the radio show host said "just like they did before jimmy carter". Most people think the dept of edu has been here since the birth of this nation and dont realize that jimmy started it.

TPTB rely on a majority of voters to be ignorant and/or lazy, and simply accept what they are fed in sound bites. In this particular case of an ignorant caller (willful or otherwise) it takes 10 seconds to do a Google News Archive search to learn just how they were lied to. For example, from the April 15th 1978 St. Petersburg Times Carter unveils blueprint for new Department of Education, among the miracles of bureaucratic efficiency promised is this paragraph:

(The DOE) would take over the Agriculture Department's school lunch program; the Department of Housing and Urban Development's college housing program; the Interior Department's Indian schools; science programs from the National Science Foundation; and the Defense Department's dependents schools.

Surprise!!!!! None of these were streamlined into the DOE. The politicians lied. The department's retained control of their programs and continued to bloat them, and the DOE set up parallel efforts and did the same thing. More confiscated FRN's circling the drain.

XNN

[AZKing]

You have to remember why the VA consumes so much money, which is the fact that we're almost always in war. If we didn't go to war so often, we wouldn't have so many vets.

I don't have tons of experience with the VA. I was on my dad's military healthcare when I was a kid, but that's about it. They serve a legitimate purpose though. Most of their costs are related to healthcare.

[outspoken]

I spent a number of years working for the VA as a health care provider. The level of bureaucracy, inefficiency, propping up of clinically inept providers as well as admin people, and utter wasteful spending is beyond comprehension for most who have not seen the system in operation from the inside. If that is how all the federal agencies operate (...and I have no doubt that it is), God help us all. Unfortunately, the VA is the sacred cow of the neo con establishment and this agency will probably be expanded faster than any other; if you don't 'support our freedom and defenders of liberty' through the promotion of the VA than you are casted down as evil.

[XNavyNuke]

The Dept of Veterans Affairs was elevated to cabinet status, not created whole cloth by Reagan. The bill to do so was introduced by the Dems. The Veterans Administration agency was actually created by the Hoover Administration in July of 1930 with promises of great bureaucratic efficiencies by combining the efforts of the Department of Interior and the Department of War. Obviously, this didn't come to pass either. Indeed the agency was used by the Roosevelt administration just two years after its creation as a foil against the Bonus Army.

XNN

[Steve Teters]

I'm not here to defend the VA, kinda, lol. I'm a retired Viet Nam era vet, received two Purple Heart awards for not ducking fast enough, (ie: minor wounds that didn't require evacuation from the field) as apposed to people that really got messed up and/or died. As a user of the system, I will say that up to this point I have been treated very well and the care received has been as good as any other health care provider I've had in the past. I guess my question is just what our responsibility is to the vets out here in the real world? I, for one, went to Viet Nam very idealistly and discovered the truth only after I saw what that conflict was costing both our country and Viet Nam itself.
I recognize that all wars are, for the most part, unjust, but how do we acknowledge service given to this country by our vets and provide for the treatment of both physical and physiological wounds received? It would seem that a large majority enter into service believing that they are serving their country and will receive some sort of financial boon (GI Bill) after leaving servitude. While most here probably agree this is misguided and scripted by a corrupt power base, until we are able to strip this base of it's power and recover our Republic, what role do we take regarding our vets?

[HOLLYWOOD]

Department of Veteran Affairs (VA)

FY2011 Expenses (Deductions) reported by the US TREASURY
http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0611.txt
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

June 2011: $9.996 BILLION
FY2011 through June 2011: $91.269 BILLION (11.2% Increase over FY2010)
FY2010 through July 2010: $81.261 BILLION

FY2011 Budget Est. Full Year: $141.13 BILLION <=== mucha


Unfortunately, a major portion of the VA expenses are used by the DOD. This is how they can provide a deception of true DOD annual costs/expenses.

According to a breakout of VA expenses for veterans, 75% is used for active military expenses and retirement pensions.

[XNavyNuke]

While most here probably agree this is misguided and scripted by a corrupt power base, until we are able to strip this base of it's power and recover our Republic, what role do we take regarding our vets?

ST, by all means defend the VA is you choose. Rep. Paul constantly champions veterans and, like it or not, their benefits (not entitlements) come through the Dept. of Veteran Affairs.

Mistreating Soldiers and Veterans (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul142.html)
More Empty Rhetoric for Veterans (http://antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=5451)
Honoring Our Military Veterans (http://www.antiwar.com/paul/paul52.html)
Congressman Ron Paul - "Fighting For Our Country" (http://ronpaulforcongress.com/html/veterans.html)

As for as the role the republic should take, it's a two-pronged approach in my opinion. The first is toward current and existing Vets. Whether a draftee or volunteer, they entered into a contract with the government. The obligation is so simple my young son can understand it: You break it, you buy it.

The second approach is toward future generations of veterans. To that end, the only sane course is to pursue a foreign policy that is not reliant upon multiple engagements on seemingly every continent on Earth.

And, welcome to the boards!

XNN