The senior leadership of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has decided that two of its executives who recently “plead the fifth” to avoid answering allegations related to their potential criminal misconduct before the U.S. Congress will not be purged from the government agency’s payroll. Nor will they be required to pay back the bonuses they received as part of their alleged abuse of their authority for personal and financial gain.
Instead, the VA’s leadership has decided that they will be demoted to slightly lower paying jobs at other VA facilities at other cities, where they will be fully eligible to collect relocation benefits. Government Executive‘s Kellie Lunney reports:
The department reassigned Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves to General Schedule assistant director positions within the Veterans Benefits Administration, according to a Nov. 20 statement. The Associated Press reported that the department reassigned Rubens to the Houston facility, and Graves to the Phoenix regional office.
Their new jobs will come with a pay cut since they are being demoted from the Senior Executive Service to the General Schedule pay system. But the two, who originally got into hot water over relocation benefits and improper reassignments, are still entitled to “seek reimbursement for appropriate costs” associated with their latest reassignments “in accordance with governmentwide statutes and regulations that require federal agencies to pay for the geographic relocation of an employee directed to relocate,” said a VA spokesperson.
Diana Rubens was previously assigned to the VA’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania office. According to Payscale, the overall cost of living at her new assignment’s location of Houston, Texas is 17% lower than that of the Philadelpha metropolitan area.
Unless the pay for her new position is less than 83% of her previous salary, what that difference in the cost of living between VA locations means is that Rubens is likely coming out ahead financially as a result of her demotion and new relocation.
Meanwhile, Kimberly Graves will be moving from St. Paul, Minnesota to Phoenix, Arizona, which according to Payscale, has an overall cost of living that is 10% lower than St. Paul.
In this case, if Graves’ pay is at least 90% of her previous salary or higher, she also will financially benefit from being demoted as a result of her new relocation.
Speaking of financial benefits, Government Executive describes the gains that both received as a result of their alleged misconduct, which involved the department’s now suspected “Appraised Value Offer” (AVO) program, where the U.S. government buys the houses of the employees it relocates at their market value, which the VA’s senior leadership would not appear willing to claw back:
The VA indefinitely suspended its AVO program after the department’s watchdog in September concluded that Rubens, who was director of VBA’s Philadelphia regional office, and Graves, who led VBA’s St. Paul regional office, improperly helped create vacancies at their respective offices and volunteered to fill them. The two employees occupying those jobs at the time — Antione Waller and Robert McKenrick – were relocated to jobs (in Baltimore and Los Angeles, respectively) they did not volunteer for to make room for Rubens and Graves, who were working elsewhere at the time, according to the watchdog.
Additionally, VA paid nearly $300,000 in relocation expenses, including costs related to the AVO program for Rubens, and about $129,000 for Graves. Both Rubens and Graves took on fewer job responsibilities in their new positions in Philadelphia and St. Paul, but kept their previous annual salaries of $181,497 for Rubens, and $173,949 for Graves. Overall, the IG concluded that VBA managers reassigned senior executives to circumvent a pay freeze, and also paid many of those executives unjustified relocation incentives.
As you might imagine, those who have been most harmed by the VA’s ongoing ethics scandals, which have cost both millions of dollars and thousands of lives as veterans have been denied timely medical treatment through the agency’s single-payer health care system, are not happy:
The head of the American Legion said he was disappointed that the department decided not to fire Rubens and Graves. “They are still allowed to draw generous paychecks and continue employment in an agency that was created to serve veterans,” said Dale Barnett, the group’s national commander. “This is an insult and disgrace to all veterans. Any promises that VA officials make about accountability in the future need to be taken with a grain of salt.”
Pete Hegseth, chief executive officer of Concerned Veterans for America, went further, blasting VA Secretary Bob McDonald directly. “His refusal to take meaningful action is perhaps the clearest evidence yet that he is part of the VA’s culture problem, not the solution,” Hegseth said in a statement. “If he will not fire employees who knowingly violate federal rules, misuse tax dollars and show the utmost contempt for veterans and their needs, he should follow Ms. Rubens and Ms. Graves out the door. His weakness and inability as a leader has never been more apparent.”
For his part, President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the 2015 VA Accountability Act, currently pending in the U.S. Senate, which would make it easier for the VA to actually fire corrupt or incompetent employees on its payroll.
If only the federal government’s bureaucrats would put the interests of regular Americans ahead of their own, the VA’s scandals might stop being an ongoing festering wound and veterans in need of medical treatment would start getting the care they earned through their service. Alas, it would seem that the bureaucrats at the very highest levels of the U.S. government have other priorities.
As we have noted many times, the new eastern span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge came in 10 years late and a whopping $5 billion over budget, but all that time and money could not guarantee safety for the public. In 2007, fissures some 10 feet long cut through a steel bar 20 inches thick. Builders opted to inject industrial strength glue and, as Jaxon Van Derbeken of the San Francisco Chronicle notes, “now the repair has failed, and water is flowing into the foundation and filling the sleeves that hold the 25-foot-long rods anchoring the tower.” At least one rod is broken and the other is rusting. Bob Bea, emeritus professor of civil engineering at UC Berkeley, told the reporter, “This is still a mess. It is not acceptable. We have got ample evidence of potentially important challenges to the strength of this system.”
“Someone should be held accountable,” Bay Area congressman Mark DeSaulnier told Carla Marinucci of Politico after recent revelations. “My constituents paid for that bridge, and they go over it. They’re at risk, If that bridge falls apart, it will have consequences, so why wouldn’t you want to find out what the hell happened, and learn from it? And hold people accountable if they did anything wrong?” Sounds good but DeSaulnier already had a chance to do just that.
As a California state Senator he held hearings on the bridge in January of 2014. He heard witnesses testify that Caltrans, the massive state transportation agency, compromised public safety by ignoring problems with welds, bolts and rods. Caltrans also outsourced work to China, where workers produced cracked welds. Whistleblowers called for a criminal investigation but DeSaulnier did not follow through on that until months later, and the state Attorney General has done nothing. The lingering safety issues, DeSaulnier said in the hearings, had eroded public confidence and made Californians “adverse to taxes.” These taxes, he said, were needed for other “infrastructure” projects that DeSaulnier claimed would promote economic growth.
Congressman DeSaulnier told Politico he plans to propose federal legislation to fend off cost overruns and contractor short-cuts such as those on the Bay Bridge. Good luck with that. State or federal oversight, it’s still the bridge to no accountability, $5 billion over budget and unsafe to boot.
Today is Thanksgiving Day, 2015. Today also marks a grim milestone for the growth of the U.S. national debt under President Obama, as it is now over $8 trillion higher than it was on the day he was sworn into office on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.
Back then, the total public debt outstanding stood at $10.6 trillion. Today, it is $18.7 trillion, having increased at an average rate of $1.16 trillion per year during each year of President Obama’s tenure in office.
Terrence Jeffrey of CNS News calculates some other numbers of note to consider this Thanksgiving:
On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the total debt of the federal government was $10,626,877,048,913.08. On Nov. 23, 2015, it was $18,722,746,583,118.03 Thus, so far in Obama’s presidency, the federal debt has increased $8,095,869,534,204.95.
As of September, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 117,748,000 households in the United States. The $18,722,746,583,118.03 in federal debt equals $159,006.91 for each one of those households.
The $8,095,869,534,204.95 that the debt has increased under Obama equals about $68,755.90 for each one of those households.
Imagine if you had gone out and accumulated an extra $68,756 in debt over the last seven years, above and beyond the amount that you may have borrowed for all your other debts, including your family’s mortgage, car loans, credit cards, student loans, et cetera.
If you had, wouldn’t you and your household would have something more positive to show for having borrowed so much more than whatever it was that the U.S. government spent all that additional money upon over the last seven years?
On this Thanksgiving Day, where we pause to give thanks for whatever blessings of abundance we’ve enjoyed over the past year, if any American can answer “Yes, we would” to the question above, then the phenomenal growth of the U.S. national debt over the last seven years without a more positive result is one kind of abundance that should never be counted among our real blessings.
Volkswagen grabbed headlines with its diesel fakery but the German auto giant is not the only car company that deserves attention these days. As Breitbart notes, Tesla Motors “issued a voluntary worldwide recall to inspect every one of the 90,000 Model S cars the company has ever built.” This is the vehicle that, as we noted, Tesla boss Elon Musk got a U.S. federal government loan of $465 million to produce. The cars cost more than $70,000, fell short of advertising claims, and tended to catch fire. The problem now centers on seat belts, warped brake rotors, leaking battery cooling pumps, wheel alignment and other issues. But the problems are not just mechanical.
As Jerry Hirsch explains in the Los Angeles Times, Elon Musk has built his companies “with the help of billions in government subsidies. Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support.” As Mark Spiegel of Stanphyl Capital Partners told Hirsch, “Government support is a theme of all three of these companies, and without it none of them would be around.” As Hirsch notes, “Nevada is giving Tesla $1.3 billion in incentives to help build a massive battery factory near Reno” and Texas will pony up $20 million for a SpaceX launch facility.
Massive subsidies are not the only issue. As Hirsch observes, “Tesla buyers also get a $7,500 federal income tax credit and a $2,500 rebate from the state of California” and all told, “Tesla buyers have qualified for an estimated $284 million in federal tax incentives and collected more than $38 million in California rebates.” The average household income of Tesla owners, writes Hirsch, is “about $320,000.” So on both ends, the wealthy benefit, and CEO Musk is doing well. In 2013 he plunked down $17 million for a 20,248-square-foot Bel-Air mansion with a gym, seven bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, tennis court, motor court, and a swimming pool.
Volkswagen, meanwhile, will have to pay heavy fines and recall vehicles for an emissions fix. But Volkswagen did not get massive U.S. government subsidies to produce its so-called “clean diesel” vehicles.
The World War II generation has reason to associate the U.S. Department of State with treason in the form of Stalinist spy Alger Hiss. Baby Boomers and beyond have come to associate State Department briefings with “Saturday Night Live” in the form of spokesperson Marie Harf, who shows a keen sense for the absurd. Now people of all ages can associate the State Department with plain old-fashioned government waste.
As Kellan Howell of the Washington Times explains, since 2007 the U.S. State Department has spent more than $36.5 million “to survey citizens in foreign countries on a wide range of topics, including general public opinion polling on how their own governments — many of them U.S. allies — are performing.” The topics include a survey of medical insurance in Spain, an elite survey in Russian and a survey on “Public Attitudes Toward Domestic and International Affairs in Austria.”
As Howell reports, of the $36.5 million more than $34 million “was paid to unnamed contractors according to the contracts compiled from USASpending.gov.” Such spending “nearly doubled” on the watch of Secretary of State and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. In fiscal year 2012 alone “the state department spent over $7.5 million alone on international polls.” Howell also notes that on Clinton’s watch, “the polling contracts became less transparent. Many of the projects were simply described with one word, ‘survey,’ and were billed to ‘miscellaneous’ foreign contractors.” Those intrigued by this record may want to review the recent book Clinton Cash.
Meanwhile, complaints now arise that a congressional investigation of Secretary Clinton’s handling of Benghazi is a waste of money. Actually, such investigations are a legitimate function of Congress and often prove useful. On the other hand, for the U.S. Department of State to spend more than $36.5 million on useless foreign surveys is indeed a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Everyone knows that monopolies in business are bad. Writing at CBS News, economist Mark Thoma explained why they’re so bad for consumers:
When firms have such power, they charge prices that are higher than can be justified based upon the costs of production, prices that are higher than they would be if the market was more competitive. With higher prices, consumers will demand less quantity, and hence the quantity produced and consumed will be lower than it would be under a more competitive market structure.
The bottom line is that when companies have a monopoly, prices are too high and production is too low. There’s an inefficient allocation of resources.
In addition, the tactics used to establish monopoly power, such as driving competitors out of business or thwarting potential entrants, can also cause considerable harm to households who own the businesses that are forced to close their doors.
For instance, a firm with deep pockets can set prices below costs and absorb losses until competitors can no longer survive. Then, once the competition is eliminated, the surviving firm can raise prices high enough to more than cover the losses it took while establishing its now-dominant market position (under antitrust regulation, such tactics are prohibited).
Americans hate monopolies. So much so that the antitrust laws and regulations that Thoma cites are specifically designed to keep businesses from being able to abuse the kind of power they might otherwise obtain.
But there are monopolies in the United States. Monopolies that the U.S. government backs with its own power against the interests of regular Americans.
The best example of that is the U.S. Postal Service, which has a government-granted monopoly over the delivery of first class mail in the United States, which comes complete with all the downsides that Thoma identifies for U.S. consumers and businesses: prices that are too high and production that is too low.
That’s a big reason why both American consumers and businesses began turning away from the U.S. Postal Service as soon as less expensive alternatives to its monopoly have become available. In response, the U.S. Postal Service, backed by the U.S. government, has repeatedly doubled down on its monopoly power over the years, jacking up its prices and cutting back its service.
And each time it does, more Americans come to hate it and turn away from it. So much so that at this point of time, even with its monopoly power, it can’t even break even. RStreet‘s Kevin Kosar explains:
The U.S. Postal Service lost nearly $5 billion this past year, according to its just-released year-end financial results. As in recent years, the agency did not make the legally required $5.7 billion payment to its Retiree Health Benefits Fund. The agency is $15 billion in debt and legally prohibited from borrowing additional funds. The unfunded portion of its retiree-health-benefits obligation is $54 billion.
Revenues increased slightly but mail volume slid by 1.4 billion pieces from last year to 154 billion. The agency has $6.6 billion of cash on hand, which is better than in recent years and means USPS is in no immediate danger of having to shut off the lights due to lack of cash. The agency’s financial results benefited from a temporary emergency price increase and a lower-than-expected employee compensation charge.
All told, the results confirm what’s been obvious for some time: the USPS faces not just a financial crisis, but an existential one. The agency’s business model was predicating on the assumption that granting it a monopoly over first-class mail delivery would enable it to reap high margins that would subsidize the agency’s service nationwide. Thanks to electronic bill-paying services, among other factors, first-class mail volume has plunged. Worse still, total mail volume is down more than 25 percent since 2007.
To be fair, the cost of the benefits for the U.S. Postal Service’s retirees represents a pretty big chunk of money, that if it didn’t pay, would make its financial performance seem better – just like the city of Chicago and its chronic underfunding of public employee benefits.
But just like Chicago, the hole that the U.S. Postal Service is in is so deep that skipping out on its legal obligations to fully fund its employee benefits programs would not be enough to put it in the black. Kosar comments:
Economist Michael Schuyler has shown that if you remove this cost, USPS nevertheless lost $10 billion over the past seven years, and the situation would have been worse still were it not for the temporary emergency-rate increase, which forces mailers to pay the government monopoly more. These same proponents of the status quo tacitly admit the USPS’ existential problem when they advocate for it to enter new lines of business, like banking.
Because an organization that:
is one that some U.S. politicians believe that Americans will trust with the management of their own money, if only it could become a bank too.
But that’s the way they think in Washington D.C. What could possibly go wrong?…
In 2011, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote:
People think of debt’s role in the economy as if it were the same as what debt means for an individual: there’s a lot of money you have to pay to someone else. But that’s all wrong; the debt we create is basically money we owe to ourselves, and the burden it imposes does not involve a real transfer of resources.
That’s not to say that high debt can’t cause problems — it certainly can. But these are problems of distribution and incentives, not the burden of debt as is commonly understood. And as Dean says, talking about leaving a burden to our children is especially nonsensical; what we are leaving behind is promises that some of our children will pay money to other children, which is a very different kettle of fish.
As of the end of the U.S. government’s fiscal year on September 30, 2015, here’s Political Calculations’ estimate of the size of the U.S. national debt and the percentage share of it that is owed to its major groups of creditors.
The U.S. national debt had been “frozen” at $18.152 trillion after hitting the nation’s statutory debt ceiling on February 24, 2015, which was later suspended on November 3, 2015 which allowed it to immediately increase by $339 billion. The estimate of $18.444 trillion above for September 30, 2015 assumes that the U.S. national debt would have otherwise grown at a steady rate during the period in which it was frozen.
In looking at the chart, the one thing that we see right off is that 33%, or one third, of the U.S. national debt is actually owed to foreign entities. And if not for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programs in recent years, in which it grew to become the largest single creditor to the U.S. government, it’s quite possible that the share owned by foreign interests would nearly be 50%.
But that’s not the biggest problem of having such a large national debt. Arnold Kling identifies the real problem in having a nation’s debt grow to be too large – even if all its lenders and spenders are found within the nation’s population, starting with a simple example:
There are two types of people in our economy: Lenders and Spenders. Sammy Spender and Lois Lender each grow two bushels of corn per year. However, Sammy wants to eat three bushels this year. There are three ways that this can happen.
Private loan: In a purely private transaction, Sammy borrows one bushel of corn from Lois this year and pays her back one bushel of corn next year.
One-time redistribution: The government redistributes corn by taxing one bushel of corn away from Lois and giving it to Sammy.
Government borrowing: The government borrows one bushel of corn from Lois this year and gives it to Sammy. It then pays Lois back out of taxes next year.
In each case, Sammy can consume three bushels of corn this year — the two he produces, plus the additional bushel from Lois. Conversely, Lois consumes one bushel of corn this year — the two she produces, minus the bushel that Sammy gets.
Next year (year two) is where the three cases differ. With the private loan, when Sammy pays Lois back next year, she is the one who will have three bushels of corn and he will be the one with only one bushel.
In the one-time redistribution case, assuming no further redistribution, then next year Sammy and Lois will revert to consuming what they produce — two bushels of corn each.
Every year, the debt creates more and more political division and antagonism.
With government borrowing, the outcome is decided in year two. Suppose that the government pays back the debt at that time. It owes Lois one bushel of corn. If it obtains that bushel of corn by taxing Sammy, then the result is the same as the private loan. If it obtains the bushel of corn by taxing Lois, then the result is the same as the one-time redistribution. If the government gets half of its tax revenues from each, then Lois will have 2.5 bushels of corn to eat (two bushels she produces plus one bushel repayment, minus 0.5 bushels of tax). Sammy will have 1.5 bushels to eat (two bushels he produces minus 0.5 bushels of tax).
In the first year, when the government borrows the money, nobody is unhappy. Sammy gets to eat an extra bushel of corn, and Lois willingly defers consuming one bushel of corn with the expectation of getting it back next year.
However, this sets the political system up for conflict and strife in year two, when the burden of paying the debt has to be apportioned. As we have seen, it could be divided any number of ways. However, consider this: Lois is expecting three bushels of corn, based on what she produces and her expectation of having her loan repaid. Meanwhile, Sammy is expecting two bushels of corn, based on what he produces. There are only four bushels of corn available, and there will be a political battle over who gets disappointed the most.
It gets worse.
In fact, in year two, the government will not want to resolve the issue of distributing the cost of the debt. Paying off the debt requires incurring political cost. The easiest thing to do is instead to roll over the debt. Moreover, Sammy is used to eating three bushels of corn, and the government does not want to have him face austerity. So it goes to Larry and Lena Lender for a loan of two bushels of corn. The government pays back Lois with one bushel and gives the other bushel to Sammy. It goes into year three with a debt of two bushels of corn.
As you can see, the political incentive for the government is to go deeper and deeper in debt. This in turn raises the stakes in the political conflict over who will bear the burden of tax increases and spending reductions. Every year, the debt creates more and more political division and antagonism….
The burden of the debt is that we create an ever-deeper conflict of interest between Lenders and Spenders. Yes, if you think of Lenders and Spenders collectively, you can say that “we owe the debt to ourselves.” But that is a dangerously vacuous way of looking at it. Large government debt is a recipe for a bitter political stew.
And that’s how the outsized growth of the U.S. national debt since 2008 became the defining domestic political conflict of our time.
As we observed in “Financial Crisis and Leviathan,” in its first 14 months the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new federal agency, did little besides expanding an already bloated and wasteful government. The CFPB duplicates the work of existing regulators and worsens a crisis government played a major role in causing through programs such as the Carter-Era Community Reinvestment Act. Unfortunately, the damage does not stop there.
As the New York Times observes, the CFPB has been taking aim at the arbitration process, a longstanding way to resolve disputes outside of the court system. A new rule by the CFPB “which would prevent financial services companies from including class-action bans in consumer contracts, could in effect kill arbitration altogether.” Trouble is, as the Times notes, the CFPB is “empowered to issue rules without legislative approval, making them more difficult to defeat. Furthermore, unlike the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is overseen by a bipartisan commission, the consumer agency has a single head, appointed by the president.”
As Mother Jones explains, a recent television commercial, aired during a presidential debate, “paints the CFPB as a Kremlin-like bureaucratic nightmare,” with prime mover Elizabeth Warren “as the Stalinesque figure” on a red banner alongside CFPB boss Richard Cordray. Given the top-down autocratic structure of the CFPB, and the lack of legislative oversight, the Soviet imagery is not much of a stretch.
The CFPB is institutionalized statist superstition, a dominant non-ethos in Washington. In this superstition, government should always expand wasteful programs and agencies, regardless of performance. And even in times of recession, government should create new federal agencies. As the CFPB confirms, those are easy to start but as Milton Friedman observed, practically impossible to eliminate, regardless of performance.
The police are much in the news of late and some activists contend the cops are too severe when dealing with minorities. On the other hand, as Brad Brannan writes in the Sacramento Bee, the California Highway Patrol might be too lenient when they deal with privileged members of the ruling class.
On November 2, Superior Court Judge Matthew Gary at the wheel of his 2014 Toyota Tundra, struck cyclist Margaret Bengs, 66, a Sacramento Bee columnist and former speechwriter for Gov. George Deukmejian. Bengs died two days later. The Nov. 4 CHP press release said Gary was wearing his seatbelt and driving less than 35 mph. The cyclist Bengs “failed to clear the traffic lane by lane” and “was not wearing a helmet.”
How did the CHP know Gary was wearing his seatbelt and driving less than 35 mph? Apparently they just took his word for it, before any formal investigation of the accident. Bengs’ helmet arrived at the hospital with the rest of her clothes, so the charge that she was not wearing a helmet is strange. A helmet can easily get knocked off in a collision with a vehicle weighing nearly 5,000 pounds.
The CHP press release says the cyclist “was struck by the front of the Toyota Tundra” but does not indicate whether Gary, the driver, struck Bengs from behind. If he was going less than 35 mph, it should not have been difficult for Gary to see a cyclist in broad daylight and stop his vehicle before impact. Was the judge perhaps negligent? Who had the right of way?
The CHP did not identify Gary as a judge and Gary wasn’t talking to reporters. CHP spokeswoman Jenna Berry told Brannan she could not say where Gary’s truck hit the bike, or where the bike was at the time of impact. An investigation was still pending but Berry told the reporter “Everything indicates that she may have responsibility for the accident.” So it looks like the results are already in and the victim is to blame for her own death. The CHP may give Judge Gary the benefit of the doubt, but the appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not exactly get good reviews for his performance on the bench.
It really is a toss up these days as to which is the most criminally corrupt federal government agency. Is it the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Veterans Affairs?
In the horse race of malfeasance, the VA edged into a slight lead last week, as two of its regional directors asserted their fifth amendment rights against self incrimination in Congressional testimony last week. Heath Druzin of Stars and Stripes describes the scene:
“Upon advice of counsel, I respectfully exercise my Fifth Amendment right and decline to answer that question,” Philadelphia VA Regional Office Director Diana Rubens said repeatedly under tough questioning from House Committee on Veterans Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla.
Miller’s flair for the dramatic was evident in the placement for witnesses: Rubens and St. Paul VA Regional Director Kimberly Graves, both accused by the VA Office of Inspector General of serious malfeasance, were seated next to the regional directors they are said to have pushed out of their jobs for financial gain. The actions spurred a criminal complaint the IG referred to the Department of Justice, and the VA has recommended both directors be punished.
Rubens and Graves sat grimly through the questioning and the testimony of LA VA Regional Director Robert McKenrick and Baltimore VA Regional Director Antione Waller, who said they had been pressured into leaving the posts that Rubens and Graves filled.
Benjamin Krause of Disabled Veterans assembled a video of Rubens’ and Graves’ testimony, in which he gradually sped up their speech each time they plead the fifth amendment (so no, that’s not a video glitch):
Stars and Stripes describes the financial windfall both received, but perhaps more disturbingly, reveals that both are still on the job.
Between them, Rubens and Graves also received roughly $400,000 in moving expense reimbursement as part of a VA program to entice candidates into hard-to-fill jobs, despite apparently seeking the positions. That bill earned the ire of lawmakers and rank-and-file VA employees alike, and the VA suspended the program in the face of the report.
Former VA Under Secretary for Benefits Allison Hickey, who was in charge of 20,000 employees, was also implicated in the scheme and originally subpoenaed but resigned under pressure before the hearing. The committee then withdrew her subpoena.
Despite the accusations against them, Rubens and Graves are all still on the job. In a lengthy email obtained by Stars and Stripes, dated Wednesday, Rubens highlights what she says are improvements in customer service at the Philadelphia and Wilmington (Del.) Regional Office.
On that last note, in other VA corrupt conduct news, USA Today‘s Donovan Slack and Bill Theobald report on who some of the most notable recipients of $142 million in “performance” bonuses that the scandal-plagued government department were:
WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs doled out more than $142 million in bonuses to executives and employees for performance in 2014 even as scandals over veterans’ health care and other issues racked the agency.
Among the recipients were claims processors in a Philadelphia benefits office that investigators dubbed the worst in the country last year. They received $300 to $900 each.
Given Philadelphia VA Regional Office Director Diana Rubens‘s alleged ethical improprieties, we suspect that the standards she uses to measure the “improvements” in customer service she promised at her regional office would not likely be shared by many veterans among her Philadelphia-area “customers”.
That would be yet another reason to plead the fifth.
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