The Veterans Administration (VA) is in a desperate need of an overhaul after failing those it is supposed to serve for years, writes Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
In an article for The Washington Times, Gingrich, also a former Republican presidential candidate, compares the individual in Tunisia who set himself on fire and subsequently sparked the Arab Spring in December 2010 to a similar event involving a New Jersey veteran.
“Last month, a 51-year-old veteran set himself on fire in front of a Veterans Administration facility in Northfield, New Jersey,” notes the former House Speaker. “His comparable act of despair should be a call to another political revolution here in the United States–one focused on transforming the bureaucracies that are failing many of the most vulnerable Americans, not least our veterans.”
“No American should be satisfied with the incompetence and corruption exemplified by the VA. That the Department of Veterans Affairs is grievously sick has been evident since at least 2007, when the stories of neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center began to get public attention,” he adds. “We learned that the VA had wounded veterans recovering in deplorable conditions, and that the carelessness and indifference of the administrators led to a number of deaths.”
Gingrich declares that it is Congress’ responsibility to change the VA.
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