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‘This is Outrageous’
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| Contributor | ev |
| Last Edited | ev May 08, 2007 09:33am |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Tuesday, May 8, 2007 03:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Freshman Congressman Phil Hare is furious that bureaucrats in the Veterans Administration are getting bonuses while soldiers are still waiting for payments. What he wants to do about it.
By Jamie Reno
Newsweek
Updated: 12:03 p.m. CT May 7, 2007
May 7, 2007 - Anger over the treatment of American veterans hasn’t cooled in some quarters of Congress. Freshman Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL), who serves on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, last week called for the resignation of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. Hare and others are steaming over the latest reports that $3.8 million in bonuses were given to senior officials at the embattled Veterans Administration in 2006. Among those given bonuses—as much as $33,000 each—were regional directors who wrote the VA's faulty 2005 budget, which government investigators have concluded was laden with misleading accounting that included claiming for false savings of $1.3 billion. On Friday, Rep. John Hall, Democrat of New York, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance, said he was introducing legislation that would freeze all future bonus payments to VA officials until the department cuts the backlog of veteran claims from the current number, between 400,000 and 600,000, to under 100,000.
Hare, a veteran who served in the Army Reserves from 1969-1975, spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Jamie Reno on Friday. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What was your initial reaction when you learned that these bonuses were given out to senior VA officials?
Rep. Phil Hare: When I read the story, I just said, “Oh, no!” As far as I’m concerned, this is all she wrote for Secretary Nicholson. He should resign now. This is outrageous and I’m very angry about it. I was shocked at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it isn’t really that shocking considering this secretary’s history, and this administration’s history, with regard to veterans.
The VA is saying that these kinds of p |
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