Acting Veterans Administration Secretary Sloan Gibson angrily ruled out firing VA workers en masse for the massive healthcare backlog accused of killing veterans, calling the idea of dismissing employees or withholding bonuses “a bunch of crap.”
Fayetteville, North Carolina news station WNCN attended a talk by Gibson — the replacement Veterans Administration secretary following Eric Shinseki’s resignation earlier this month — held at the local VA hospital.
Despite speaking to veterans who felt the scandal “goes further than they want you to know,” Gibson defiantly refused to admit the systemic breakdown suspected by many of the VA’s patients.
“You know, this, this — this idea that let’s fire everybody, let’s pull everybody’s bonus away? That’s a bunch of crap,” he declared angrily. “Have we got problems? Yes we do . . . And my commitment is that we’re going to deal with these problems. But I’m not going to see people sit here and say that we’ve got 350,000 people that aren’t worth a crap.”
The department gave more than $100 million in bonuses to employees while some were faking appointment waiting lists over the last three years. Congress voted last week to ban any further VA bonuses until 2016.
WATCH (video via WNCN):
[h/t NRO]