Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki
Following an
inspector general's interim report confirming long delays for veterans seeking health care in Phoenix, some congressional Democrats are joining
calls for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign:
... Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), locked in a competitive reelection race against Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), became the first Democratic senator to call on Shinseki to go.
Udall’s statement prompted two other vulnerable incumbents, Sens. John Walsh (D-Mont.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), to issue similar statements. [Sens. Jeanne] Shaheen and [Al] Franken followed suit Wednesday night.
A number of House Democrats
also called for Shinseki to step down. Shinseki, meanwhile,
wrote an op-ed detailing steps he has taken and is taking to address the problems, and asserting that the report's finding are "reprehensible to me and to this department, and we are not waiting to set things straight." Shinseki—or his successor, should he resign—faces a major challenge. As Meteor Blades
noted Wednesday:
Since President Obama became president, the VA budget has climbed 50 percent from $100 billion to $150 billion. While that may seem adequate to the austerity mongers, those eligible for veterans' benefits more than doubled from 400,000 to 918,000 in the same period.
At this point, to the problems at the VA we can add a media spotlight and highly politicized attention from Congress.
8:25 AM PT:
Pelosi defends Shinseki: "It rewards those who have been misleading the secretary to say he should go because they misled him." #VAScandal
— @WSJPolitics