Posted on 06/17/2016 1:41:25 PM PDT by Nachum
The Department of Veterans Affairs has angered and frustrated lawmakers by deciding to stop using their authority to fire senior employees, an authority Congress gave the VA in response to the wait-times scandal of 2014.
"Everyone knows VA isn't very good at disciplining employees, but this decision calls into question whether department leaders are even interested in doing so," House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said Friday.
The expedited firing process was designed to help VA leaders flush out senior officials who had overseen the manipulation of wait times, which prevent veterans from receiving timely healthcare. But it hasn't been used much, and it provoked a number of legal challenges from fired employees.
In response, Attorney General Loretta Lynch has declined to defend a provision of the law that cuts off one way employees can appeal disciplinary decisions.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
It’s things like this that make me realize just how incredibly stupid Congress is.
This is not the most egregious headline I’ve seen lately, by any means. But it illustrates to a “T” why our gov. is entirely, 100%, corrupt, unconstitutional and lawless. It has to be cleaned out wholesale, or there will be hell to pay.
If it was merely stupid it would not be so dangerous.
Corrupt, lawless, criminal, bought and paid for, evil agenda driven, and basically trasonous would be more precise.
wtf? how do they do that?
“We abdicate our power to fire people”
So ... everyone has to stay because they took away their own power to fire people? Def. libtards in charge
Au contraire mon amie...your Congressman can only do/act as the majority of his constituents let said congressman know how they feel about an issue. How often do you take the time to fax a few lines rather than call or how often do you call the congressman's local office? You 'hired' him/her...let them know who they work for. The VA corruption is a sign of citizens sitting on their duffs instead of hammering their elected.
It's your choice.
“In response, Attorney General Loretta Lynch has declined to defend a provision of the law that cuts off one way employees can appeal disciplinary decisions.”
Standard DEMOCRAT tactic. Jerry Brown, and the Democrats use it all the time in California to allow the environmentalists to win their lawsuits against the State. They don’t defend the State. Make only a show of doing it. Environmentalists are the Democrats major donor, and the major participants in all things Democrat within the party, so of course the environmentalists get what they want.
Now by this article we see they are using the same tactic to skirt the intent of the Congressional relief they were provided to clean up the VA. Bearing in mind the bureaucracy is stuffed full of entrenched Democrats.
Kneel! Kneel before your government employee gods, you filthy swine taxpayers!
Bring them offerings of bonuses and bribes lest they strike you down!
All you have to do is control the VA pay computer.
Turnabout is fair play.
Start screwing up their pay.
When they complain, tell them you are looking into it. Tell them it will take at least three months.
When they complain again, tell them to call the pay office. Give them a phone number to a phone that is never answered.
After three more months, tell them they need to fill out a form. Have them mail in the form and let it sit on a desk for six months.
When they complain again, tell them to call the Inspector General. Have no one answer the phone.
After four years, tell them there is no record of them ever working for the VA. Tell them there was a fire and their record may have been burned up.
Tell them to reapply for a job.
And yet Paul Ryan goes on national television and says he will sue Trump over stopping Muslim immigration.
The inglorious V.A. must have caved to the internal office pressure of the American Federation of Government Employees, which is the largest FEDERAL EMPLOYEE UNION within the V.A.
I was an employee of the V.A. New Orleans, and it was quite evident, that every little ‘department’ had their own little ‘empire of ol’ boys and girls’, down to the department that took care of the hospital daily supplies.
Any talk of any employee, had to be coordinated with the ‘AFGE’, either good or bad.
Make the VA benefits private. Eliminate the VA, IRS and other BS agencies.
With Jeff Miller in charge, no wonder it is still messed up.
They will sure give themselves promotions, bonuses and pay raises, while the Ret. Military sees zip this year.
Dear sasquatch,
re: “Make the VA benefits private. Eliminate the VA, IRS and other BS agencies.”
I agree we should do something.
As to the V.A., there is one point that i will share, as a veteran getting all my medical care from them.
The pharmacy refill program is something that is another mess, BEYOND what goes on at the clinics and medical centers.
Let’s say you have “prescription whachamakeuvit”. You need this prescription, in managing kidkneecholheartblad problems, and you are running low, but not less than 10 days worth, yet. You KNOW, if you are within a close travel range of your local VAMC, you will sit there the whole day waiting on your refill.
So, you grab your phone of choice and call the prescribed V.A. number, and enter into the ‘push for this’ menu. Once you have done that, your order is not processed at the local VAMC, but digitally sent, to the prescription clearing house and dispensary IN NASHVILLE, TN. It is THEY who will fill and mail your prescription refill request, within 7 to 10 days, providing that those lovely over-paid USPS workers do not go on strike.
Now, in making anything change from governmental to private, there would be a ‘snafu notch’, and in this notch, might be some very necessary stuff, that need not fall through the seams of the carpet, which would include me.
I agree that the federal government is overgrown, and needs a large pruning to occur. With the tremendous success and inter-agency accomplishments under its belt, why not get rid of the Dept. of Homeland Security, and give it back to the original homeland security outfit, the FBI; and let the CIA do its job, outside of the borders of CONUS, as it did before each sitting president got his fingers in the mud.
The Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms department of the U.S. Treasury has not been as keen as it should be, either.
The Drug Enforcement Agency, and ‘the war on drugs’, has not done too well in deterring drug trafficking. If there is ‘a war’, where are the blood and gut casualties? That whole scene has reduced to a game of hide and seek, and a rabbithole for government money.
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