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REPUBLICAN
PRESS RELEASE
June 15, 2007
Buyer commends record VA budget, calls for focus on management and
oversight
For more information, contact: Jeff Phillips (202) 225-3527
Washington, D.C. — House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Member
Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) today commended the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs on the
passage of H.R. 2642. The bill would provide a record $43.2 billion in
discretionary VA funding for healthcare, claims processing, personnel,
construction, maintenance and other associated expenses.
“I commend my Democratic colleagues for making good on many of your
assurances,” Buyer said. “You have done better for veterans than your
predecessors in the Democratic majority of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
They presided over the tragedy of a wretched VA portrayed in such
horrifying films as ‘Born on the Fourth of July’.”
After decades of neglect, which spanned through Operation Desert Storm,
the new Republican majority in 1996 began a decade of landmark VA budget
increases. Year after year, lawmakers added billions of dollars to
essentially flat-line Clinton administration budget requests.
“It was a Republican House that ensured a doubling of VA’s budget. We
added more than money though; we added ideas: it was a Republican House
that opened enrollment in 1996. It was a California Republican, Dr.
Kenneth Kizer, who as under secretary for health used those strong
budgets to revolutionize VA’s healthcare system, creating healthcare
networks, expanding outpatient clinics and a system of electronic health
records,” Buyer said. “VA is now considered the nation’s finest
healthcare system.”
“This is a generous bill, but it will take more than money,” Buyer said.
“It will take good management and oversight.” Buyer noted during debate
that the Government Accountability Office found last year that VA
healthcare bureaucrats did not spend over $60 million of the funds
allocated for mental healthcare in 2005 and 2006.
“Money didn’t solve the problem with the inefficient, patchwork quilt of
VA information technology systems that wasted millions of taxpayer
dollars and cheated veterans out of efficient service,” Buyer said,
referring to the centralization of IT management and security achieved
in 2006. “That took years of congressional perseverance and leadership
by the VA secretary. In the end, it was not a shower of money, but hard
and sustained work that fixed the problem.”
While H.R. 2642 provides record appropriations for VA, $3.8 billion more
than the administration requested in February; unfortunately, this
appropriation is part of a larger Democratic majority budget plan that
would impose the biggest tax increase in American history. The
Republican budget plan recognized the growing needs for VA care. In
March, Republicans proposed veterans spending for FY 2008-2012 that
exceeded those of the majority by $8 billion without raising taxes on
our veterans.
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Larry Scott
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