The Department of Veterans Affairs under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris has created a crisis of agency management that lawmakers cannot allow to be "swept under the rug," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.
The department in mid-July told lawmakers it expects to be nearly $15 billion short of what it needs to pay for benefits and healthcare this year and next, partly because more veterans are using services than expected.
"Is this VA budget calamity due to gross mismanagement or incompetence or both?" Tuberville wrote in an opinion piece for the Independent Journal Review on Friday. "Before Congress passes another massive emergency supplemental to save the VA from itself, we need to get to the bottom of this failure."
Tuberville, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, is calling on panel chair Jon Tester, D-Mont., to immediately schedule an oversight hearing on the matter before a $3 billion supplemental funding package moves forward.
"No one wants veterans' benefits delayed, but Congress needs to get to the bottom of this before we burn more taxpayer dollars," Tuberville wrote in article.
The Senate, he said, "is now scrambling to move an emergency appropriations package that would keep the department afloat.
"What the Senate is not scrambling to do is to understand why the VA is saying they have shortfalls in the first place," Tuberville wrote. "No senator wants to delay benefits to veterans and dependents. But we also have a duty to protect the American taxpayers, and the VA clearly owes us an explanation."
Tuberville added: "These supplemental funding requests are proof of gross mismanagement of billions of taxpayer dollars by the Biden-Harris VA. In the private sector, if you mismanage funds to the tune of billions, you are likely to go out of business. More likely yet, you could go to prison.
"Fortunately for the Biden-Harris administration, mismanaging funds like this likely won't result in any negative repercussions for the bureaucrats who let it happen — unless Congress takes action."