The VA spent $6.3 million on fountains and statues
Congressional review of the spending habits of the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reveals the agency has spent some $6.3 million on fountains and sculptures for its facilities, primarily at two locations in California.
One of the installations is a giant section of Morse code quotes from Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt. It is on the side of a parking garage, lights up in rainbow colors, and cost a cool $285,000.
"It is simply beyond me why VA would choose to [fund projects] by cutting medical services and medical facility dollars but not the exorbitant conference spending or bloated relocation expenses or art," said Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), who has critiqued the sculpture spending.
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In recent years, the VA has also been caught going wildly over budget on hospital construction, providing slow and inadequate service to veterans, using faulty medical equipment, engaging in corrupt activities with minimal consequences, and fudging the numbers on veteran suicides.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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