Africas priority but also see how the rest of the globe. 2015, whatever it is, it has to be. Were lucky, as an envoy of the president , to be part of that process, to be part of the process of the u. N. Development, u. N. For 2015 visions, Highlevel Panel that had 24 members from a different part of the world and also cochair by indonesia and britain. Just the same we handed over to secretarygeneral report, the eu met and decided, well, its the time to create this group. Its about creating a group of experts, which was the case of the mpgs. Okay. Start with a political process. Well eliminate a few head of states. They decided two head of states each of the economic regions of africa. Two from west africa, guinea and liberia, two from north africa, algeria, two from central africa, utopia more ittious, south africa and we set up the head of the and the president was named to chair the process. We have been having meetings. The big problem how do you reduce 60 or 70 priorities into work
Tyranny of the in box. One of my jobs was to represent the secretary of defense, working through the issues, developing options for the principals and the president. A lot of Crisis Management focus. When youre in a think tank, your whole utility is not trying to secondguess the policymaker on the issues of the day but help to do some work to raise their days, help them look over the horizon to see what are those issues im going to confront a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, and how do i think more strategically about americas role in the world . Former secretary of defense and cofounder for the center of national security, Michelle Flournoy on its creation of defense policy issues. Sunday night on cspans q a. 40 years ago, the watergate scandal led to the only impeachment of an american president. American history tv visits Richard Nixon as it considers impeachment of the president and the charge of abuse of power. What you have here are questions about what the
An audit revealed more than 57,000 veterans on too long waiting lists to be scheduled for medical appointments and in addition to that there are other veterans seeking care at va who were never even added to these wait lists. This is clearly unacceptable and must be dealt with immediately. I couldnt agree mor with senator mccain when he said on the senate floor in the debate, and i quote, if theres a definition of emergency, i would say that this legislation fits that. It is an emergency. It is an emergency what is happening to our veterans and the men and women who have served the country and we need to pass the legislation and get it to conference with the house as soon as possible. End of quote from senator mccain and i fully concur with what he said. Veterans in this country must get quality care in a timely manner and we need to provide the funding the va needs to accomplish that goal and to do it as expeditious a manner as possible. The simple truth of the manner is the va needs
Items that have to be addressed. Obviously, we must pave the way for the va to use nonva care to expand veteran access and clear the current backlog. But we cant just fix the problem by simply throwing more money at it. The va has had more medical care funding than it could spend during each of the last four fiscal years. To include 1. 4 billion as recently as 2010 and was set to carry over 450 million this year before dipping into those funds for the current accelerated access to care initiative. This is led to multiple testimonies by both va and nonva witnesses who have noted that the Biggest Issue is not a lack of funding but a welcome of accountability. For this reason, the legislation that we mold must hold individuals accountable who fail to meet performance standards and oversee mismanagement and neglect. The perverse incentives that led to the manipulation of scheduling data and secret lists must be eliminated. Any incentives Going Forward must have an impact on improving patie
That is what it is for. I dont know what the senators schedule is, but we will have to see. It is unilateral. How when there is only one this not bew can considered unilateral . You will have to ask the democrats why they did not come. I heard all sorts of rhetoric that this was a take it or leave , that we had not been negotiating in good faith. Comee wanted to do was together in public, make the offer, and leave. Just did. At we that is all that would have happened had the democrats not come. How much are you offsetting . We will find the offset through the appropriations process the next year. The first year there is no offset. It is 10 million immediately. Undert year we compete the spending caps . Spending caps are still in place. Withw did you negotiate senator sanders . It has been wonderful. Senator sanders is a good friend. We want the same outcome, Quality Health care delivers in a timely fashion to our veterans. He has a believe we can do it a different way. He has a belief