Bush Broke a Broken DVA

‘You know how there are all these checks and balances in the government?’ says Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. ‘Under the Bush administration, all that was turned on its head. When you look at what they did, it’s like reading the opposite of the Federalist Papers.’ Despite the fact that Alexander Hamilton clearly articulated that there should be checks on the president’s power — especially in a time of war — the Bush administration selectively interpreted the Federalist Papers to claim that Congress has no right to restrict the president.
 
Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson embarked on a campaign in 2005 to reduce the number of claims made by veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder, announcing a plan to review the cases in which veterans receive full disability benefits for the disorder. He said he wanted to root out ‘fraud.’ Shortly thereafter, a New Mexico veteran who was undergoing review committed suicide, partly over concern about the review, according to veterans’ advocates. On Nov. 10, 2005, Nicholson discontinued the claim review. …
 
When Anthony Principi requested an increase for the agency’s fiscal year 2005 budget, President George W. Bush balked. He recommended that the VA receive a budget of $65.3 billion, $1.2 billion less than what Principi wanted. Principi, who had served as an acting secretary of the VA in the first Bush administration, knows how things work in Washington.

Nevertheless, he spoke out during a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on Feb. 4, 2004. By December, Principi was out of a job. His departure marked a turning point for the VA. Many of the programs that he had championed, such as a mental-health task force and efforts to improve claims processing for veterans who have been injured in combat, lost the strong backing in the agency and were allowed to languish. …
 
Bush’s initiative allowed a set of institutional changes at Veterans Affairs that have had a significant impact on the constitutional separation of church and state. In the past, faith-based groups supported by federal grants had to agree that they would not use religion while helping veterans. Under the new regulations, individuals supported by federal funds do not have to make this promise. Meanwhile, at the VA Health Care Network in upstate New York, ‘spirituality assessments’ of patients are conducted by a chaplain within 24 hours of a patient’s arrival, according to a lawsuit that was filed by members of a Wisconsin-based organization, Freedom from Religion Foundation. A VA hospital in Big Spring, Virginia, also conducts a basic spiritual assessment, with such questions as ‘When talking to people, how often do you mention spiritual or religious things?’ and ‘How often do you pray?’ And at the Loma Linda VA Medical Center in California, a questionnaire states one of the goals of the assessment: ‘Maintain Optimal Spiritual Health.’ In some facilities, these spiritual assessments are documented in a patient’s medical progress report.