http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/27/va-expects-to-have-more-medical-care-funding-than-it-can-spend-for-the-fifth-year-in-a-row/?print=1VA Expects To Have More Medical-Care Funding Than It Can Spend For The Fifth Year In A Row
Posted By Patrick Howley On 11:46 AM 05/27/2014
The Obama administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expects to have more money for medical care than it can spend for the fifth fiscal year in a row, The Daily Caller has learned.
Republican lawmakers and veteran groups are currently calling for the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki over secret waiting lists kept at the Phoenix VA Medical Center that led to preventable veteran deaths.
Despite liberal claims that VA needs more funding, based on a report from the labor union the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) that VA is underfunded, the scandal-plagued department actually has a surplus in medical-care funding.
VA expects to carry over $450 million in medical-care funding from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2015. VA received its full requested medical care appropriation of $54.6 billion this fiscal year, which is more than $10 billion more than it received four years ago.
This is part of an ongoing trend.
VA carried over $1.449 billion in medical-care funding from fiscal year 2010 to 2011, $1.163 billion from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2012, $637 million from fiscal year 2012 to 2013, and $543 million from fiscal year 2013 to 2014.
The Daily Caller reported that VA spent more than $3.5 million on furniture the night before the government shutdown on the last day of fiscal year 2013 so as not to lose that money in the department’s budget the next fiscal year.
