Why Is the VA Spending Millions on Solar Panels While Veterans Die?
The environmental religion of the radical Left has infected the Department of Veterans Affairs management, at the grave expense of veterans.
After news recently broke that the VA spent millions of dollars on high-end art purchases over the past eight years, the Washington Free Beacon, per a Veterans Affairs audit, reports the VA spent over $408 million on solar panels since 2010 while neglected veterans were dying waiting for care.
The solar panel projects have experienced “significant delays,” with some of these systems completely inoperable:
The watchdog conducted an audit of 11 of the 15 solar projects awarded between fiscal years 2010 and 2013 that were still in progress as of May last year. The investigation, which was completed in March, found that only two of the 11 solar panel projects were fully completed. […]
The contracts for the 11 projects reviewed by investigators totaled about $95 million, though some have become more expensive because of poor planning and delays. The VA spent more than $408 million on its “green management program” solar panel projects between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, according to annual budget records.
While the VA was wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on these exorbitant vanity projects, employees were manipulating hospital records to cover up the distressing wait times for service.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made VA reform a key tenet of his campaign. Among Trump’s proposed reforms are increased funding for PTSD services, job training and placement services, firing “incompetent and corrupt” VA executives, and “modernizing” VA operations.
But proponents of the same enviro-Marxist ideology that thought solar panels on federal buildings were more important than veterans’ healthcare services have come out swinging against Trump. The Washington Examiner reports that following Trump’s economic policy speech in Detroit Monday, an environmentalist group blasted the remarks for “doubl[ing] down on dirty fuels.”
Billionaire activist Tom Steyer’s group NextGen Climate immediately criticized Trump’s ideas as the policies of an all-white, all-male policy team, which offers “nothing ‘new’ or ‘fresh,'” but only looks to protect corporate profits for big polluters.
“The Trump economic agenda — developed by Trump’s all-male, all-white economic advisory team — doubles down on dirty fossil fuels and ignores the enormous economic opportunities presented by clean energy,” the group said.
Trump's economic advisory team = 13 white men. How could this group possibly represent our country?! #StopTrump pic.twitter.com/K9iI1qZRmP
— NextGen Climate (@NextGenClimate) August 8, 2016
While the radical Left is free to take shots at anyone it so pleases, the real-world consequences of environmental zealotry continue to be felt throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The result? Incomplete solar panel projects, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, and wounded veterans neglected. (For more from the author of “Why Is the VA Spending Millions on Solar Panels While Veterans Die?” please click HERE)
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