Gillespie Montgomery: “H.R. 4013 is a bill designed to give the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the tools he needs to manage Veterans'…”

“H.R. 4013 is a bill designed to give the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the tools he needs to manage Veterans' Administration's health care system. It would postpone unsound and devastating personnel reductions in Veterans' Administration hospitals, outpatient clinics, and nursing homes. The administration has promised us that the Veterans' Administration will be able to compete under health reform. But the Office of Management and Budget has told the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that during the next fiscal year the Veterans' Administration will have to cut 5,000 health care employees and slash another 20,000 people by 1999. I have yet to hear any logical explanation for the policy of applying a Governmentwide reduction in personnel to Veterans' Administration's hospitals system. It is a mistaken policy, one which even the Vice President's report on 'Reinventing Government' condemns. Let me read from that report: Federal managers often cite FTE controls as the single most oppressive restriction on their ability to manage.”