Rewards for incompetence never seem to end, do they?
Months after a politically embarrassing $1
billion shortfall that put veterans’ health care in peril, Veterans
Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to
$33,000.
Veterans turned away from the White House in 1932
Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans’ health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.
The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006…documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA’s flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.
The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated — if not deliberately misled taxpayers — with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid a burgeoning Iraq war.
As much as I hold both major flavors of American politico in contempt, I have to admit the sleazy crowd running the White House and Congress for the last 6-10 years really have raised the bar for corrupt practices.
Posted: Thu - May 3, 2007 at 12:00 PM