As the Department of Veterans Affairs lurches from one scandal to the next, Americans are rightly asking, "When will the madness end?"
As someone who's seen firsthand the Obama administration block, undermine and botch attempt after attempt to reform the organization charged with serving America's veterans, it's clear nothing will change until our nation has a new leader.
Don't believe me? Consider the facts. After Congress passed a law that gave VA nearly $15 billion to help decrease insufferable wait times for veterans' medical care, the Obama administration threatened to shut down hospitals if Congress didn't allow VA to take an early $3 billion from the fund to solve a self-inflicted budget crisis. Now, waits for VA primary care are longer than they were nearly two years ago, and more than 500,000 veterans are waiting more than 30 days for a VA appointment.
After Congress gave the department the ability to swiftly fire corrupt VA executives involved with manipulating wait times, President Obama's VA announced it would refuse to use the fast-track firing authority. To date, VA has fired less than 10 people for a systemic wait-time manipulation scheme that involved 40 VA medical facilities.
In other words, VA is relying on many of the same people who caused VA's problems to fix them. Is it any wonder, more than two years after a shocked American public learned of VA's wait-time antics, that VA employees are still cooking the books and problems at the agency continue unabated?
It will take a strong, engaged president to right the department's ship. Donald Trump is the right person for the job. He built a fantastic company that is synonymous with success. He is precisely the right person to turn around VA, which has become infamous for its failures. His 10-point VA reform plan is full of the type of practical, proactive ideas that have been missing from the department for far too long.
To most people, hallmarks of Trump's VA reform plan -- like firing bad employees, protecting good ones and setting up a White House hotline to field veterans' concerns -- are basic common sense. Not at VA, where suicide-hotline calls go to voicemail and blatant dishonesty, corruption and whistle- blower retaliation among employees is routinely tolerated.
And while supporters of the failing status quo are desperately trying to keep veterans inside a VA health care system that often times is falling short, Trump's plan will put veterans first by giving them more choices over their health care decisions. This includes a proposal that would ensure every veteran can seek health care at the VA or private-sector provider of their choice -- a concept similar to one recently put forth by the bipartisan VA Commission on Care.
Reforming VA is not rocket science. The best way to turn the department into an organization truly worthy of our veterans is by increasing transparency and accountability – principles that don't cost a thing but are almost non-existent at VA.
And when it comes to restoring transparency and accountability to VA, one would be hard pressed to find someone more ill-suited for the job than Hillary Clinton. She's a serial liar who has continuously misled the American people about her emails, and the FBI's investigation proves that. In other words, not exactly the type of person we can trust to level with the public about the extent of VA's problems or the best way to solve them.
Clinton's dishonesty was on full display when she said the VA scandal – in which scores of veterans died while waiting for medical care – was exaggerated. Plain and simple: she can't solve the problems at VA because she doesn't really believe they exist.
And when it comes to accountability, we already know she won't do a thing to rid VA of employees who can't or won't do their jobs. That's because the big-government union bosses who are dead-set on blocking reforms that make it easier to address VA's lack of accountability – far and away its biggest problem – have already endorsed her bid for president.
If Hillary Clinton gets back to the White House, it will only be a matter of time before we're talking about the next VA scandal. That's why I'm supporting Donald Trump for president.
Unlike Clinton, Trump has made veterans issues a centerpiece of his campaign. He's consistently spoken about the challenges veterans face, starting from his first day on the trail. And while Clinton is peddling false conspiracy theories that Trump wants to "abolish" VA, Donald Trump is actually focused on what's important: improving the lives of veterans and reforming the agency that was created to serve them.
This election, our only chance to fix America's broken VA system is by putting Donald Trump in the White House. That is why I am fighting to do just that.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, a Republican from Chumuckla, Florida, has advised Donald Trump's presidential campaign and is the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
