Shinseki Wasn't the Problem: "Taxpayers Get What They Fucking Pay For"

[n2doc]

Adam Weinstein

Now that Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has fallen on his sword, the agency can finally give our growing population of ill and aging vets the care they deserve, right? Not according to the many frazzled VA employees who have sent Gawker their stories. Here's one.

We've heard from many VA workers and are reading all of their accounts—of malfeasance, of incompetence, of inertia caused by politicization and budget cuts—and we'll share more in the coming weeks. Here's one we received immediately after Shinseki tendered his resignation to President Obama this morning, which describes an underfunded, undermanned spoils system at VA: "You fucking had two fucking wars and demand that we take care of our veterans, but somehow you can seem to come up with equitable funding that you do for some fucking fighter jet."

This employee has worked at VA since 2007. Despite holding a graduate degree, the author was "was immediately sat down and ordered to make copies, and make notebooks. For the larger part of not quite a year and a half, I was assigned menial tasks while most of the work was contracted out to 'program support contractors.'"

My issues with the VA are as follows:

1. Thanks to Congressional pressure to not grow the government, we rely heavily on contractors to administer services. The rationale being that you keep government from growing and keep costs down (HR and pension costs down), you contract services. However, the American population is still growing as does the need for services. In addition, it is not uncommon to have the same resource in excess of 5 to 10 years (especially if a subject matter expert). We have no way to hire them full time because we cannot offer competitive wages. If you really want to cut down on waste fraud and abuse, private contractors hired should be the first to go. Upon my second year the the VA, 1 single program support contract resource was 250K, whereas a GS12 employee with benefits was valued at 125K. I don't know about you, but it seems as if government employees are still cheaper.

more

http://gawker.com/shinseki-wasnt-the-problem-taxpayers-get-what-they-fu-1583876768

[Wounded Bear]

1. There's a lot of "shrink the government" in the RW poutrage over this latest scandal...

K & R/

[DJ13]

2. most of the work was contracted out to 'program support contractors.'

We need to eliminate the waste involved in using for profit outside contractors.

From education to defense it seems if theres a lack of proper funding to do the job there are contractors involved.

[msongs]

3. "private contractors" where dems and repubs pay off their money men & women nt

[abelenkpe]

4. privatization is a scam that robs taxpayers of

money and services. We desperately need to nationalize much of what the government has contracted out over the past 30 years.

[bvar22]

5. Taxpayers get what they pay for?

Not anymore.
Taxpayers, Citizens, and Voters no longer have much say in what our Government does.

Elections are Kabuki fielding ONLY "approved" Candidates,
the "Debates" are nothing more than Marketing Charades,
Our Media will back one of the two Corporate Approved candidates,
and the Voting Machines are Black Boxes owned by "Private" Corporations.

We haven't had Presidential Debates (General or Party Primaries) since the 80s,
when the League of Women Voters refused to host them anymore:

"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

[seabeckind]

6. An old article bears it out

WASHINGTON — Despite a widespread belief that contracting out services to the private sector saves the federal government money, a new study suggests just the opposite — that the government actually pays more when it farms out work.

The study found that in 33 of 35 occupations, the government actually paid billions of dollars more to hire contractors than it would have cost government employees to perform comparable services. On average, the study found that contractors charged the federal government more than twice the amount it pays federal workers.

The study was conducted by the Project on Government Oversight (http://www.pogo.org/), a nonprofit Washington group. The federal government spends about $320 billion a year on contracts for services. The POGO study looked at a subset of those contracts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html?_r=0

[seabeckind]

7. Intent

By contracting out the true cost of projects can be hidden in another funding source. In the reports the gov't overhead is definitely reduced. The guy who said gov't costs way too much and can be reduced (reagan in this case) has something to point at to prove his point.

He also had a funding stream to his backers.

During the 80's the contractor could bid the project and had no overhead, that was carried on the fed books. The fed provided office space, equipment, etc. In some case even provided training. In order to helpp the contracting idea, the fed workers bid the same project but had to include the overhead.

Every time there was the most minor change in specs, the contractor said he needed more resources otherwise there'd be a slip. Those never adjusted the base cost...just overrun.

Ironically, even tho resources were supplied the slip happened anyway.

Ref the VA benefits system. Cast of thousands, goes on forever.

Charter schools work the same way.

[seveneyes]

8. Taxpayers get what the fuckers controlling the money give them

We pay more than enough to have nice things.