{"id":54101,"date":"2014-07-22T13:14:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T17:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=54101"},"modified":"2014-07-22T13:14:02","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T17:14:02","slug":"hegseth-sen-sanders-socialist-agenda-holding-up-help-for-americas-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=54101","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth: Sen. Sanders\u2019 socialist agenda holding up help for America&#8217;s veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/embed.js?id=3604821024001&#038;w=466&#038;h=263\"><\/script><noscript>Watch the latest video at <a href=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\">video.foxnews.com<\/a><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>Our buddy, Pete Hegseth, the director of <a href=\"http:\/\/concernedveteransforamerica.org\/\">Concerned Veterans for America<\/a> sends us a link to his opinion piece in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/opinion\/2014\/07\/22\/va-reform-sen-sanders-socialist-agenda-holding-up-help-for-america-veterans-107408970\/\">Fox News<\/a>. Here are some excerpts;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. The definition of insanity in Washington is when, despite painfully obvious facts and experiences, ideologically-slavish legislators insist the \u201csolutions\u201d (read: more money) that they\u2019ve tried for years will finally solve persistent problems.<\/p>\n<p>The latest personification of such insanity is Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the self-proclaimed socialist who also happens to be the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs (VA) committee.<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026] <\/p>\n<p>First, Sen. Sanders introduced an expansive $30 billion veterans omnibus bill in February that foisted substantially more responsibilities onto the VA, flooding a system that was already overloaded. But, for the first time in decades &#8212; thanks to the efforts of reform-minded Senators and outside groups &#8212; the bill was defeated on the Senate floor. A clear message was sent: bigger doesn\u2019t mean better.<\/p>\n<p>Second came the public VA scandal in late April, when brave whistleblowers in Phoenix came forward and started the ongoing cascade of revelations that became the national disgrace known as the VA scandal. <\/p>\n<p>A department that had been lavished with substantially more resources under this administration &#8212; roughly 60 percent more funding since 2009 &#8212; was unable to see patients promptly, and worse, was caught falsifying records to protect executive bonuses and hide the truth that veterans were dying as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The reaction was strong and swift on Capitol Hill, with a common refrain: VA does not have a resource problem, it has a culture problem. <\/p>\n<p>Even President Obama echoed this sentiment last month, saying, \u201cbefore we start spending more money [at VA], our first job is to take care of some basic management issues that can be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shortly thereafter, accountability and veterans choice legislation overwhelmingly passed the House and the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings us back to our favorite socialist, Bernie Sanders. Those House and Senate bills are now before a conference committee, in which &#8212; as the Senate VA chairman &#8212; Bernie Sanders has a large role. But, rather than negotiate in good faith to hammer out strong VA reform legislation that would finally hold VA executives accountable and finally give veterans the choice to see private doctors if they wait too long, Sanders is doing the only thing he knows how to do: throwing money at the problem. It\u2019s insane, but he\u2019s doing it.<\/p>\n<p>In the face of overwhelming evidence, and an urgent crisis for our nation\u2019s veterans, Bernie Sanders is insisting on $17.6 billion in additional VA funding\u2014to hire more staff, build more facilities, and upgrade IT infrastructure. <\/p>\n<p>Worse, the billions in spending he\u2019s requesting is currently justified by three pages\u2014three!\u2014of information provided by the VA itself. <\/p>\n<p>[\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>Even if the additional spending Sanders is requesting is valid, it does not address immediate crisis of care and should be managed through the regular budgeting cycle. Moreover, why should we build more capacity in a system that is failing, instead of finding immediate ways for veterans to get the care they need? <\/p>\n<p>Simple solutions need to come first: like longer hours at VA clinics, asking certain doctors to see more than a handful of patients per day, and giving veterans private choice could address urgent needs. \u2026<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>A clean reform bill, one that addresses accountability and choice\u2014is within reach. Groups like mine will be fighting for that reform, and still believe the right deal can still be struck. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve disliked Bernie Sanders since the late eighties when he was a carpetbagger, flatlander mayor of Burlington, Vermont where I taught ROTC. Now, he&#8217;s faced with a dilemma &#8211; the only real solution to reforming the VA is cleaning house and tossing out the deadwood, but in order to do that, Sanders would have to turn his back on the union, a socialist&#8217;s base. So, veterans are going to lose, because veterans count less than union members. And America is looking at a crashed airliner this week, instead of veterans.<\/p>\n<p>Go kick some commie ass, Pete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Our buddy, Pete Hegseth, the director of Concerned Veterans for &hellip; <a title=\"Hegseth: Sen. Sanders\u2019 socialist agenda holding up help for America&#8217;s veterans\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=54101\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hegseth: Sen. Sanders\u2019 socialist agenda holding up help for America&#8217;s veterans<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}