Congress may have done something useful for once but it may be too little too late. What took them so long before they recognized there was a major problem.

What the government should really do is to set up a few dozen watch-dog committees to investigate the discrepancies.  That will cost taxpayer’s another few billion. A billion here a billion there; what the hell is the difference.

A congressional battle is brewing over the Department of Veterans Affairs’ admitted mismanagement of construction projects across the country — including an over-budget, billion-dollar hospital in Colorado that was, briefly, abandoned by the contractor. 

Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman said in a recent statement. “VA construction managers couldn’t lead starving troops to a chow hall.”

Coffman is a guy with a little military history. He has served both in the Army and Marine Corps. Coffman plans to introduce legislation stripping the VA of its authority to manage construction projects, and putting the Army Corps of Engineers in charge instead. I really can’t attest to just how qualified the Army Corps of Engineers is; they are another branch of the government.

My recommendation would be to privatize all government work.

Adding to the very long list of black eyes for the VA is a Colorado  construction project the VA designed in 2005 that was estimated to cost $328 million. By 2008, design changes led Congress to authorize $568 million for the project. By 2010, Congress increased the authorization to $800 million. The project is only half completed.

In most cases on a private construction project an unqualified or jippo contractor is many times at fault for the failure of the job. But in this case it seems that this government controlled project was behind in their payments to a very credible company, Kiewit-Turner. The company pulled off the project because of the lack of payment and is suing the government.

There can be numerous factors behind over-runs on any project. The primary reason is due to lack of experience in the design of the job by its owner or the engineering firms they hire; in this case being the US government.

Most of the time the discrepancies in the project are noticed by the contractor as he is in the bidding process but they never bring it to the owners attention until they have a signed contract. Once their foot is in the door it is carte blanche. That is smart business.

In 2005 the project was projected to cost $328 million. The updated cost to complete the job is way over a BILLION dollars. That is what I call superb engineering and estimating.

I do not blame Kiewit-Turner for the discrepancies on the project, the are in business to make money. I blame the government and the engineering firm they hired to design the job.

The walk off the half-finished project, leaving 1,400 workers out of a job.

Just like an old broken record by a government official, Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson admitted the agency was at fault. “I apologize to veterans here in Colorado. I apologize to the taxpayers. We have let you down,” he said. Gibson left out a few words, again – again and again. I call it total incompetency.

Coffman maintains, “It’s not isolated to Aurora, Colorado. Every major construction project that the [VA] has right now is hundreds of millions of dollars over-budget and years behind schedule.” Here we are again, absolutely no accountability in gobernment.

It is not a military secret that EVERYTHING with very few exceptions the government gets its dirty fingers into turns out to be a total disaster. Privatizing is the only way to go.

Privatize def: transfer (a business, industry, or service) from public to private ownership and control

When any project is privatized (exactly what the terms implies – work done by a private company) the signature the company puts on the contract obligates them to complete the job in a timely manner for whatever bottom line figure/total amount is indicated on the contract. That is unless there are changes on the job. In that case, the changes are document, the costs are noted and the contractor is compelled to abide by that change as part of the original contract.

The graft/kickbacks and corruption in most of the government projects, regardless if it is buying milk, buying construction equipment or building a multi-billion dollar project is staggering.

I will guarantee that if and when an investigation on this project is launched the findings will be as I just indicated. That is unless the investigator is getting his/her palm greased as well.

Government officials: It is not coming out of their pockets directly and can give two shits about how they spend taxpayer’s money.

Is it about time that the US government privatizes all of their projects and takes it out of the control of their very inept people and begins spending the American taxpayers wisely? I think so.

This way of doing business inside the government is nothing new. It has been going on since the guys with the wigs signed the Declaration of Independence and it will continue for the duration. Corruption and incompetence is everlasting.

As my dearly departed friend LJP used to say “it is the American way.”

Happy New Year to all the taxpaying, patriotic Americans that keep this country strong. Keep your chins up and keep fighting back. Hopefully better days are coming, although I am not very optimistic.

To all the freeloaders, rebel rousers and parasites in this country; you know who you are, there is a ship leaving Miami at 2359 tonight for North Korea. Make sure you are on it. Lets see if the Kid Dictator will put up with your bullshit.