DepartmentofVeteranAffairs

== == =---_ __Executive Department of Veteran Affairs__=  [|Veteran Affairs Official Website] = = = =

__Our Goal:__
====Our goal is to provide excellence in patient care, veterans' benefits and customer satisfaction. We have reformed our department internally and are striving for high quality, prompt and seamless service to veterans. Our department's employees continue to offer their dedication and commitment to help veterans get the services they have earned. Our nation's veterans deserve no less.====

__Budget:__
2009 Request: $93.7 Billion Construction: 1% Departmental Administration: 1% Benefit Mandatory Programs: 50% Medical Programs: 44% Information Technology: 3% Benefit Discretionary Programs 1%

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Search for Savings of $100 Million Derided by GOP as Drop in the Bucket
//By// //Michael A. Fletcher// Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 21, 2009 CNN

The brickbats were flying even before President Obama convened his first official Cabinet meeting yesterday. At the session, Obama ordered his agency heads to identify and shave a collective $100 million in administrative costs from federal programs in a budget of well over $3 trillion. "At the same time they're looking for millions in savings, the president's budget calls for adding trillions to the debt," said  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "The nation's debt is at its highest level ever, but under the administration's budget, the amount of public debt will double in five years and triple in 10." Framed by members of his Cabinet, the president himself acknowledged that the goal amounts to a drop in the bucket. "It is, and that's what I just said," he told reporters. "None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we are going to do is, line by line, page by page, $100 million there, $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money." In a frenetic first three months in office, Obama has seen his $787 billion economic stimulus plan enacted and the outlines of his $3.5 trillion budget passed, while overseeing hundreds of billions of dollars in outlays to stabilize the nation's teetering financial system and its imploding housing market. But that may prove to be the easy part. With Congress back from its spring recess and many of the big, expensive pieces of Obama's plan for turning the economy around now in place, the president is pivoting to the nitty-gritty details of implementing his plans to expand health care, encourage production of renewable energy and improve education -- all while demonstrating he is serious about cutting the federal deficit. With that in mind, Obama called his first official meeting of the Cabinet, which for modern presidents serves as less a policymaking session than a forum for conveying presidential authority. This is particularly true for Obama, whose White House has multiple policymaking "czars" coordinating activities on issues from climate change to health care. During his years in office, President George W. Bush was known for seeding his Cabinet with people who were personally close to him, while running policy mostly through the White House, leaving agencies as purveyors of those ideas. Obama, meanwhile, has assembled a governing team notable for its independence and star power, but until yesterday he had never met with its members officially as a group. "The Cabinet is for pictures and stories and publicity," said Bradley H. Patterson Jr., who has worked for three administrations and has written several books on the inner workings of the White House. Yesterday was such an occasion. Surrounded by the top administration officials, Obama said his team is aware of the need to cut spending over the long haul. "One of the things that everybody here is mindful of as we move forward, dealing with this extraordinary economic crisis, we also have a deficit, a confidence gap, when it comes to the American people," Obama said. "And we've got to earn their trust. They've got to feel confident that their dollars are being spent wisely." As a start, the president set the $100 million goal for cutting administrative costs across the government. The White House said that process already has yielded some savings: The Department of Veterans Affairs canceled or delayed 26 conferences. The Education Department is no longer allowing employees to have both laptop and desktop computers. The Agriculture Department is terminating leases and doing more to verify the income of recipients of farm subsidies. And the Department of Homeland Security is going to start buying its office supplies in bulk. The relatively small savings from those measures have drawn ridicule from Obama's conservative critics, many of whom have been critical of his spending plans. "To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall," Harvard University economist N. Greg Mankiw, a Bush administration official, wrote on his blog. "How much would he or she announce that spending [be] cut? By $3 over the course of the year -- approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year." Meanwhile, the administration is learning that those small savings will come easier than the larger ones officials are eyeing. Administration plans to have the government directly administer all federal students loans, cutting out banks and saving $94 billion over the next decade, have run into bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's blueprint to shift billions in defense spending has also met with a mixed reaction from lawmakers. Obama's proposal to end automatic subsidy payments for big farmers and capping subsidy payments at $250,000 has been derided by some farm state lawmakers. Today, the Senate Finance Committee will hold the first of three roundtable discussions on improving health-care services and improving efficiency, another step in Democratic leaders' plans to pass a health-care reform bill by the summer. In the near future, the House committees will begin work on cap-and-trade proposals to reduce carbon emissions. And Congress will also be working to fill in details of Obama's budget outline. All of this will come against a backdrop of opposition from Republicans, who accuse the president of spending too freely -- a perception Obama hopes to dash. "None of these savings by themselves are going to solve our long-term fiscal problem," Obama said. "But taken together they can make a difference, and they send a signal that we are serious about changing how government operates."

=W.Va. groups fear cuts to mental health care= by **The Associated Press** http://www.dailymail.com/News/200905040127 Monday May 4, 2009

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Although the Legislature hasn't yet begun work on the budget, behavioral health care centers in West Virginia are worried about preliminary numbers showing they could lose about $2.5 million. Behavioral Health Care Providers Association President Mark Games says if those cuts happen, it could mean closing group homes and cutting substance abuse services, among other losses. Department of Health and Human Resources spokesman John Law says the numbers are an estimate based on possible budget scenarios, and aren't definite.

=Obama to Order Cabinet to Quickly Cut $100 Million From Department Budgets=

By Michael A. Fletcher
President Obama plans to convene his Cabinet for the first time today, where he will order members to identify a combined $100 million in budget cuts over the next 90 days, according to a senior administration official. The budget cuts, while they would account to a minuscule portion of federal spending, are intended to signal the president's determination to cut spending and reform government, the official said. Obama's order comes as he is under increasing pressure to show momentum toward his goal of eventually reducing the federal deficit, even as he goes about increasing spending in the short run to prop up the economy and support his priorities. Earlier this month, both chambers of Congress passed Obama's $3.5 trillion budget outline for 2010, which includes unprecedented new investments in health care, education and energy. But the huge budget, which contemplates a $1.2 trillion deficit, has drawn the ire of small-government conservatives who say that the deficits jeopardize the nation's economic future. Last week, conservative activists organized tea parties to protest Obama's budget which they say "spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much from our children and grandchildren," according to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). "They're really concerned about the amount of spending that's going on in Washington and the amount of debt that is being piled up," Boehner said yesterday on ABC's "This Week." "They know that you can't have trillion dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see without imprisoning the future for our kids and theirs." In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama repeated his vow for his administration to scour the federal budget "line by line" to reduce spending. During an address to Congress in February, Obama said his administration has identified $2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. That savings projection, however, rests on a dubious baseline, including assuming that the United States would have retained its current troop level in Iraq for the next decade. The reduction also contemplates expiration of tax cuts for the nation's highest income earners. Still, Obama said he is serious about reining in deficits over the long term, and some agencies are already moving in that direction, the administration said. Veterans Affairs has canceled or delayed 26 conferences, opting for less costly alternatives such as video conferencing, saving nearly $17.8 million. The Agriculture Department is working to combine 1,500 employees from seven office locations into one facility in 2011, which the agency said would save $62 million over a 15-year lease term. Also, Homeland Security projects that it can save up to $52 million over five years by buying office supplies in bulk, officials said. The Cabinet meeting comes as the Obama administration has begun speaking more openly about tentative signs of improvement in the economy. But even as glimmers of improvement emerge, it is likely that some of the nation's largest banks will need additional help, which the administration should be able to provide without asking Congress for more money, top White House officials said. The Obama administration is moving closer to releasing some results of the "stress tests" aimed at projecting how the nation's largest 19 banks would withstand further deterioration in the nation's economic condition. "We're confident that, yes, some are going to have very serious problems, but we feel that the tools are available to address these problems," David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, said yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation." Officials said that the administration should be able to provide additional bailout money if necessary without returning to an increasingly skeptical Congress for further authorizations. The administration plans to release guidelines for the stress tests this week, and it hopes to make results available in early May. "It's important that there is disclosure," Axelrod said. "And I think the banks are going to want that because they're going to want the markets and the country and the world to know exactly what their condition is," he added. Obama yesterday wrapped up a visit to Mexico and the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, where he attended a summit of Caribbean and Latin American leaders. He then will turn his attention back to domestic issues, aides said. Chief economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers said Obama would back efforts to tighten regulation for credit card companies. Executives from the nation's largest credit card firms have been summoned to the White House for a meeting with administration officials later this week. Meanwhile, members are Congress are pushing legislation to limit the ability of credit card companies to raise interest rates on existing balances, while requiring clearer disclosure of loan terms. "He's going to be very focused in the very near term on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses, having to do with the way people have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates I <3 Sofia that they wouldn't have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into," Summers said on NBC's "Meet the Press." While officials talked cautiously about the obstacles that stand in the way of a turnaround in an economy that is still shedding more than 600,000 jobs a month and is seeing continued spikes in home foreclosures, they also pointed to some improvements. Some major banks have reported profits recently, and there are signs of credit thawing in some corners of the economy, officials have said. "No one is in any position to declare any kind of victory here," Summers said. "But the fact that no one can declare victory doesn't mean that we shouldn't take note of developments as they unfold. And the developments, as I say, are more, are more mixed now." In the long run, Summers said, the nation's economy is going to have to become less reliant on borrowing and consumption, even if that is what is needed now to prevent the recession from worsening. "We're going to need a less leveraged economy," he said. " . . . Individuals are going to have to save more." In addition, he said, government is going to have to pivot into a position where it is "a contributor of savings to the economy, rather than a drain," said Summers. Speaking on ABC, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel pointed to recent quarterly reports from several major banks that they were turning healthy profits as a bright spot, but he cautioned against reading too much into them. "That doesn't take away that some are going to need resources," Emanuel said. "We believe we have those resources available in the government as the final backstop to make sure that the 19 are financially viable and effective." http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourworld/politics/articles/obama_to_order_cabinet_to_quickly_cutmillion_from_department_budgets.html?CMP=KNC-360I-GOOGLE-BULL&HBX_OU=50&HBX_PK=budget_cuts