Tag Archives: government

The VA Strikes Again

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Used to be, veterans could apply for disability via letter, even a hand written note.  Further, when that note arrived, coverage began for the applicant, should his application be accepted, including backdated payments to cover the period between receipt of the application and its acceptance.  Not anymore.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says the many ways that requests for disability compensation arrive actually hamper its ability to administer benefits, and they contribute to a claims backlog that has about 400,000 veterans waiting more than 125 days for a decision.  At times, workers spend so much time trying to figuring out what’s being claimed and trading letters with applicants that it’s slowing down decisions for everyone.

Never mind that the Godfather of the VA, General Omar Bradley, its first MFWIC, told VA staff that they were there to serve the veterans, not themselves.

According to the VA’s bright idea,

the first communication from a veteran may not trigger anything.  Those veterans who put their claims in writing would have to completely fill out a standard form [generally on line], and the clock that determines how far back the government will pay, won’t begin ticking until the VA receives the successfully completed form.

And that form better be filled out correctly.  If it’s not, there’ll be delays, including the possibility the form will be returned “for resubmittal in 90 days for further disapproval.”  Oh, and never mind that critics of this move point out that

veterans who are the most vulnerable—the homeless, those with traumatic brain injury, and those with a limited education—would have the most trouble meeting the new standard.

The VA emphasizes its online form, which is more convenient for the VA bureaucrats.  After all,

The VA said that veterans who don’t have a computer can go to the closest VA facility to get help.

Never mind that lots of veterans, especially those in rural areas and the elderly, either don’t have access to the Internet, or they don’t have a computer at all.

Rule…Law

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Christopher DeMuth, writing in The Weekly Standard, notes among other things that

Obamacare is introducing a new form of government​—​improvisational government, characterized by continuous ad hoc revisions of statutory law by executive decree. This is a reversion to a primitive form that long antedates our Constitution and rule-of-law traditions.

Indeed.  What DeMuth calls “continuous ad hoc revisions…by decree” is simply rule-by-law.  Something at which the People’s Republic of China has excelled for centuries.  President Barack Obama might well take some advice from those folks.

Who Lost?

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Dunstan Prial at Fox Business, noted that

The Treasury Department on Monday announced that the government has sold its remaining shares of General Motors, and that losses from the 2009 auto industry bailout total about $15 billion.

In a conference call, Treasury officials said the government has recovered about $39.9 billion of the $49.5 billion earmarked for GM under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) approved by Congress as the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy nearly five years ago.

And

Treasury has intermittently sold its shares of GM but always at a price below that which would have allowed the government to break even on the deal, which accounts for the nearly $10 billion in losses.

And

The government has lost an additional $1.3 billion on its bailout to Chrysler[.]

Leaving aside that the auto industry was not bailed out, nor was it ever at risk—only two failing car companies were at risk—there is another misunderstanding, and one that’s surprising from a business writer.  The government lost nothing on these bailouts.  The government has nothing of its own, and so it has nothing that it can lose.

We American taxpayers lost those $10 billion on GM, those $1.3 billion on that Italian car company, those $15 billion overall.

Free Speech, Progressive Style

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A day after he questioned President Obama’s decision to unwind a major tenet of the health-care law and said the nation’s capital might not go along, DC insurance commissioner William P White was fired.

White did acknowledge that the Deputy Mayor who fired him didn’t specifically lay the cause off to White’s reluctance to rubberstamp Obama, but the DM didn’t give any other reason, either.  And the timing of the firing is…curious.

In a statement White issued after Obama announced his ObamaFix, White said in part,

The action today undercuts the purpose of the exchanges, including the District’s DC Health Link, by creating exceptions that make it more difficult for them to operate[.]

A senior city official, carefully speaking only anonymously, said White’s statement should have been sent to Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins for prior approval first.  So, the DC Mayor reserves to himself the actions of DC Health Link and he reserves to himself authority for determining the validity and legality of insurance policies sold in the district—not the insurance commissioner’s office.

Yeah.  And if the political line isn’t toed, if the political, pre-written speech is not carefully recited, you’re out.

Hmm….

Free Speech, Belgian Style

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Didier Bellens, CEO of Belgacom (Belgium’s largest telecommunications company) has been fired.  He complained too much about government regulation and taxes.

As The Wall Street Journal described it,

Over the years, Mr Bellens has launched a number of broadsides against the government.  Friday’s dismissal comes after the latest attack, in which he asked a business club breakfast in the chic Brussels suburb of Uccle, “Who’s the worst shareholder?”  His answer: “The Belgian state.”

Yep.  The Belgian government owns 53.5% of Belgacom.  And the government disapproved of Bellens’ political—even business—speech.  Last Friday, Prime Minister Elio di Rupo fired Bellens, announcing

The repeated, accumulated outbursts have irreversibly damaged the confidence of the Belgian state in Mr Bellens[.]

There can’t even be an argument that Bellens hadn’t been performing up to snuff from a business perspective.  Stefaan Genoe, a telecommunications analyst at brokerage Petercam, had this about Bellens’ results:

Overall, Belgacom has evolved very well strategically during his tenure.  It has a very healthy balance sheet.

Dividends are still attractive, at 8 or 9%[.]

And the Progressives in our own government want to Europeanize us.

Hmm….