ones who are not doing their job. it has to change the way we do business. it s not set up efficiently to have so many government workers who do a great job or a poor job. can t get rid of you. it s not a money issue. 2008, their outlays were about $45 billion. in 2013, the outlay became 154 billion. you re saying it s not a money issue. it s an accountability issue. you re absolutely right. it s not a money issue. they have plenty of money to do their job. it s a mentality issue. there s no sense of urgency at the va. they re just not performing. so it s not a money issue. it s a cultural issue. i think that having this great large government, this government gone wild type men l mentality in the va is hurting our veterans. coming up, as an american
washington. it is all points and all them saying hillary clinton is the person responsible. they made huge mistakes and no republicans and no word if petraeus is being held accountable. there were problems. the state department did not provide resources there and secretary kerry reinstated the employees that had been suspended for not responding to requests for more security in benghazi. both sides are not addressing the real issues here. i want to turn to you. we talk about hillary clinton in 2016. how does this impact the white house president obama heading into 2014. they spent a fair amount of the first part of the year dealing with the fallout from benghazi. i don t think that there will be a conclusive answer on this. the accountability issue and there is a great piece in politico about why we will never stop arguing about benghazi. a lot of this has political
associated press reporters who broke the story and here with me now. did i get that right in the intro? absolutely. take me back to 2010 when you first learned about his true identity and what led up to this week. figuring out bob was working with the cia was the first step but reflecting the calculus on whether to hold that story versus the story we ultimately ran is very different. the reason this story was important and the accountability issue behind the story we ultimately ran dass the bungled mission. that a u.s. citizen was put in harm s way by elements of its government, and that is an important story that can t stay in the shah cos forever. you heard on twitter, keeping a secret and deciding when not to keep a secret is the hardest thing i ve ever done. you mean in your whole career?
indeed it does. congresswoman, i wanted to ask you a question on the topic of the sexual assaults issue in the military. yes. can i play you something that chuck hagel said just a short time ago? take a listen, ma am. this is cultural. this is an accountability issue. it s sometimes a structural issue. are we going far enough up and down the chain of command? there are so many dimensions to this that i don t think you can come at it in one simple way. we ve now had three high-profile scandals of men in the armed forces chargedรง with overseeing elements of the sexual assaults prevention unit, either suspected or charged with violating that very trust, itself. what must be done about this? you know, he s absolutely correct that it is cultural because i think that s what happens to many of our young people who go to the academies.
it around, but if you re talking about leadership within congress or a governor or someone who s thinking of running for president in 2016, it is easy politically to kick the republican congress, easy shots like chris christie took, but there s also a substantive case to make. and you can elevate yourself high sky if you re jindal or christie or jeb bush not taking a gratuitous shot but saying here s what s wrong with my party now. your column crazy doesn t win, but there s still these elements of crazy. sorry. i interviewed this fellow scott garrity from cnbc. i said what are you going to do about sandy? accountability issue. this is a jersey congressman, accountability issue. accountability? i have friends whose houses are now a mile below where they were, destroyed on a river. you re talking about accountability. he said yes, before that, we need accountability. and i m thinking, will you please fly over long beach island, joker?