The Dole-Shalala Commission appears to be a transparent attempt by the White House to provide political cover for GOP stump thumpers to continue on vacantly pledging "no taxes" and "small government", while ignoring the President when he budget boasts like this before the American Legion:
Mar 6, 2007: Support of our veterans has been a high priority in my administration. This year I've asked Congress for more than $86 billion for veterans' services. And if Congress approves my request, this would amount to a 77 percent increase of the budget since I took office; ...
The 2008 budget proposal will increase the VA health care budget by 83 percent since I took office. The Department of Defense's health care budget has grown from $19 billion to $38 billion. And that's an important commitment, and I look forward to working with Congress to say to our veterans, we care about you. Money is one thing; delivery of services is another. (Applause.)
The Commission will deliver its final report and recommendations by Memorial Day 2008. Convenient how that fits on the political calendar, eh?
But the fact is that the "Administration" appears to have been deliberately looking the other way either to sidestep fiscal responsibility or to pursue cost-containment (!), possibly enabled by appointing people who give rosy scenarios in order to continue pleasuring the President's Rovian-all-seeing-eye with their service.
What is wrong with "the system" is known and what must be done to "fix it" is probably not a terra nova, as Bob Dole suggests, "if we came up with good recommendations, it could change the system for the next 30 years", nor quite what the "Administration" has been trying (they haven't just been inactive).
Signs of stress have been on the table during most of the Bush Administration, even if the gigantic red-flag of war-quagmire wasn't enough, somehow!
The VA currently maintains that it can cope with the surge in demand, despite much evidence to the contrary. For the past two years, the VA ran out of money to provide health care.
In FY2006, the VA was obliged to submit an emergency supplemental budget request for $2 billion ... [another way to quietly keep the costs of GWOT from the American public's scrutiny?]. ..
The previous year, VA requested an additional $1 billion ...
The rest of the Professor's long-term cost estimates run as follows for the GWOT:
| ($ billions) | LOW | MOD | HIGH |
| Disability | 67.6 | 109.5 | 126.8 |
| Medical | 282.2 | 315.2 | 536 |
| Total: | 349.8 | 424.7 | 662.8 |
Even those don't include the capital costs of improving VA facilities. The possible sham nature of the "Commission" is that the VA already has a capital program in place, called CARES (Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services), and it appears quite extensive, if not riddled with possible pork (Biloxi?).
In that context, it appears the Commission's self-congratulation will arrive just in time to declare victory on what is already being done. Or, more than likely, to pass on to the next President/Congress the unfunded liability for renovating and upgrading some of the 5,000+ operations that the VA runs.
