I promised a follow-up article after Chapter 5; it took me the better part of 48 hours to cool down sufficiently to write coherently to effect an update. On 18 March 2002, I wrote about an appointment with my Primary Care Provider (PCP) being tardy, unprepared, and bureaucratese in supposedly holding a phone appointment with me. 01 April 2022, not an “April Fools Joke,” at 0731 hours, lasting 9 minutes, my PCP called me to get my approval to have me changed from her PACT team to another provider’s team. Apparently, in the highly red taped world of PCPs at the El Paso VAHCS, there must be an hour-long handoff call when a provider initiates a change of PACT team. I have my doubts and smell designed incompetence!
Let me pause here for a moment. I generally need two hours to write an article after conducting research. 18 March 2002, it took a bit longer to draft that one due to the need to blow off steam with some choice words and choke down the urge to beat a few brick walls with my fists. I am generally a very controlled person, and the fact that this PCP was so stunningly incompetent, rude, and HIPAA clueless, I admit I lost my cherub-like demeanor! That the patient advocate was able to get my secure message, upload the comments into the electronic medical record, and contact the provider before the provider had even logged the patient notes, speaks volumes about the ineptitude of the PCP. Worse, in the call on 01 April, the PCP was still on speakerphone, still disregarding HIPAA security, and quoted lines out of context from my message to the patient advocate. Speaking volumes about the processes and procedures of the patient advocate’s office to investigate patient claims without breaching confidentiality. Another topic for another day entirely!
28 March 2022, I received the following from the patient advocates office, quoted completely:
“We have received your secure message addressing your concerns. I will be sending a Patient Advocate Tracking notification with your concerns to our Primacy Care Service for review. They will be contacting you via telephone to discuss your concerns.”
I never heard anything from this mysterious “Primary Care Service” group/team. 01 April 2022 was the first response, and that was from the PCP. Sourcing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG), the PCP is the second most important member of the Patient-Aligned Care Teams (PACT) at the VA; the patient is the essential member and an actively engaged and knowledgeable patient is preferred. I promise the VA-OIG has not even scratched the surface of the problems with recalcitrant, snowflake, and bureaucratic PCPs endangering patient health with the VA. Not my first run-in with an inept PCP; I sincerely hope it is my last!
In returning to the 01 April call, we find another interesting piece of data. The PCP affirmed that abdominal pain could radiate from, say a hernia, to other parts of the abdomen, but this is for a specialist to diagnose, not a Family Practitioner. Get that; the PCP is directly reversing all the published documentation by the VA and the VA-OIG by declaring that a specialist is the only person who can adequately decipher and detail why pain is occurring—putting all the PCPs in the VA Health Administration under the bus as merely button pushers and drug dealers. Then the PCP has the temerity, nay the chutzpah, to suggest a trust deficiency existing between myself and the PCP. Is it any wonder that people are detested, forlorn, melancholy, madder than a wet chicken with a raging case of hemorrhoids with the care they receive from VA healthcare providers?
Again, I repeat, only for emphasis, when any updates arrive on this issue, I will publish them in their entirety to allow the VA the opportunity to rebut, refute, or explain. Like the ongoing saga with VISN 22, the Phoenix VAMC, and being arrested and injured three times by the VA Police, I am not holding my breath and awaiting a logical response. If this were the only problem in the two weeks since the PCP shenanigans, the VA would be in pretty good shape. Alas, we know, dear readers, that the VA is in dire condition, and the elected leaders need to be scrutinizing the VA a LOT more closely than they are.
We begin the latest chapter of VA-OIG reports with yet another physician bilking the government:
“Robert Clay Smith, a Louisiana physician, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, wire fraud, and illegal remunerations (taking kickbacks). According to court documents, the scheme, which ran from 2013 until 2017, involved individuals associated with a medical supply and billing company recruiting Smith to dispense pain creams and patches to his workers’ compensation patients by offering him a split of the profits. The company acted as the billing agent for Smith, handling all the paperwork and submitting the allegedly fraudulent claims to the US Department of Labor, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, and private insurers. In exchange, the company paid Smith 50 to 55 percent of the profits collected from successfully billing insurers, at markups of 15 to 20 times what the medications cost.”
Plus the following:
“Robert Schneiderman of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, admitted to participating in a massive compounded-medication kickback scheme that he and others ran out of a pharmacy in Clifton, New Jersey. Schneiderman pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute. From 2014 through 2016, Schneiderman and his coconspirators used Main Avenue Pharmacy, a mail-order pharmacy with a storefront in New Jersey, to run a fraud and kickback scheme involving compounded drugs like scar creams, pain creams, migraine mediation, and vitamins. Schneiderman was the president of Main Avenue Pharmacy and was a founder and CEO of its corporate parent. Main Avenue Pharmacy received over $34 million in reimbursements from healthcare benefit programs on compounded medications alone. Approximately $8 million of that total was paid by federal payers. Schneiderman himself earned over $400,000 through the course of the scheme. This case was investigated by the VA OIG, FBI, Department of Defense OIG, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and Department of Health and Human Services OIG.”
Don’t forget this one:
“Dr. Harry Doyle, a psychiatrist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his wife, Sonya Doyle, have agreed to pay $3 million to resolve alleged violations of the False Claims Act. The alleged violations include submitting false billing to the US Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) for psychiatric services that were not provided and upcoding and double-billing patient claims. The Doyles have also agreed to be voluntarily excluded from federal healthcare programs for 25 years as part of the settlement. This is the largest recovery against a single psychiatrist in the history of the OWCP. A multiagency investigation of Dr. Doyle’s practice revealed that from January 2013 through April 2021, the Doyles allegedly billed for services not rendered, some of which occurred when they were not physically present in the United States. This case was investigated by the VA OIG, the Department of Labor OIG, and the United States Postal Service OIG.”
More is coming on this one:
“Ten Texas doctors and a healthcare executive have agreed to pay more than $1.68 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations involving illegal remuneration in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law. According to a multiagency investigation, from 2015 to 2018, the doctors allegedly received thousands of dollars in illegal remuneration from eight management service organizations (MSOs) in exchange for ordering laboratory tests from Rockdale Hospital doing business as Little River Healthcare, True Health Diagnostics LLC, and Boston Heart Diagnostics Corporation. Little River funded the illegal remuneration to the doctors in the form of volume-based commissions paid to independent contractor recruiters, who used the MSOs to pay numerous doctors for their referrals. The MSO payments to the doctors were disguised as investment returns but were based on and offered in exchange for the doctors’ referrals. As part of their settlements, the defendants have agreed to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s investigations of other parties involved in the alleged law violations. To date, 17 doctors and two healthcare executives involved in this scheme have agreed on settlements totaling more than $2.7 million. The civil settlements resulted from a coordinated effort between the VA OIG, Department of Health and Human Services OIG, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas [emphasis mine].”
Elected officials, the next time you are asked about the incredible amounts of fraud in government-provided healthcare and insurance, do not buy the media talking points that the fraud is minimal, contained, or anything but designed incompetence on the part of the bureaucrats to act as a jobs program for investigators! The same investigators who are refused sufficient tools to investigate shenanigans by employees in the Federal Government adequately.
Frankly, all of these cases need the government workers to be held accountable, and the myriad of red tape loopholes CLOSED! I remember an election; I forget who and the exact when, but a significant election plank in the platform was healthcare reform, promising to clean up the swamp and bring accountability to Washington and the government. The public is still waiting, and I know enough of you have run on this topic from both parties to repaper the walls (inside and outside) of the White House.
Yet, even if only outside providers and executives were scheming, the VA might not be in too bad a condition. Except for the employees of the VA, VHA, and VBA, which continue to be caught up in ethics violations at a minimum:
“The VA-OIG conducted an administrative investigation that included a congressional request to look into allegations that Charmain Bogue, former executive director of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Education Service, committed ethical violations arising from her spouse’s consulting work for Veterans Education Success (VES). VES is a nonprofit advocacy group that regularly had business before the Education Service. The allegations also pointed to possible incomplete financial disclosures by Ms. Bogue concerning her spouse’s consulting business. In their work, investigators uncovered evidence of other potential conflicts of interest and related misconduct by Ms. Bogue [emphasis mine].”
VA-OIG finding:
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- Bogue participated in Education Service matters involving VES without considering whether it raised an apparent conflict of interest and acted contrary to the ethics guidance she received from her supervisors.
- Bogue sought résumé feedback from the president of VES to aid in her search for career advancement without considering whether this raised apparent conflict of interest concerns in subsequent VES matters. VES also endorsed Ms. Bogue for presidential nominee positions.
- Bogue provided insufficient detail about her spouse’s business in 2019 and 2020 public financial disclosures; VA ethics attorneys had found them compliant. She remedied the subsequently identified deficiency in her 2021 disclosure.
- The OIG found that Ms. Bogue refused to cooperate fully in the OIG’s investigation by refusing to complete her follow-up interview. Her husband and VES president also refused to participate in OIG interviews, and the OIG lacks testimonial subpoena authority over individuals who are not VA employees. Bogue resigned from VA in January 2022.
UPDATE: 14 April 2022 – Sen. Grassley was hoodwinked by the VA on this issue and The Daily Signal (linked) has more of this report. I covered this before, I repeat only for emphasis, when you are discharged from the VA, you lose your ability to be a “whistle-blower.” As a point of fact, this is how the VA is able to hide a lot of their shenanigans, get rid of the person rocking the boat, invent the paperwork, cover the whole incident over as a “bad-apple” and keep you collective heads down and mouths shut until the VA-OIG investigation concludes. The VA’s ability to abuse whistle-blowers is further compounded by Federal Attorneys who cherry-pick the cases they know they can win. Which further protects the VA’s shenanigans and disheartens and mystifies those who have been wrongly terminated. The Daily Signal reflects this pattern of corruption perfectly citing the records obtained by Empower Oversight.
Some commentators have claimed that blaming elected officials for not scrutinizing or not providing tools to investigate entirely is unduly unfair to the congressional representatives. Really?!?!?! The VA-OIG conducts an investigation, the people being investigated refuse to comply, and the VA-OIG is toothless to enforce a full and complete investigation to initiate Attorney General and FBI investigations and actions to recompense the defrauded taxpayer. Ms. Bogue and the VES have invalidated any trust the taxpayer should have in their respective activities, but this, like so many other investigations into VA employees, will die of apathy before anyone is held accountable. Even though a congressional representative demanded an investigation, nobody is being held liable. Nobody is forced to compensate the defrauded taxpayer, yet the taxpayer is still expected to elect the same old representatives to their jobs. Blaming the congressional representatives (legislative branch) for not scrutinizing the executive branch, one of only two jobs these people have, is somehow unfair? NO!
Remarkably, between the 18 March disaster with the PCP and 01 April’s compounding idiocy, the VA-OIG published an ironically titled investigation report.
“Improved Governance Would Help Patient Advocates Better Manage Veterans’ Healthcare Complaints.”
Imagine that, more designed incompetence negatively impacting the veterans seeking care at a VA medical facility, stating the obvious by the investigators. Who on earth would be responsible for seeing that regulatory agencies had the tools needed to scrutinize and demand corrective action? Calling all elected officials, did you notice that one of the prima facia tools a veteran has to report problems, conveniently called “patient advocates,” does not have the sufficient authority, adequate oversight, and tools to execute their jobs? The VA-OIG reports the following:
“The Patient Advocacy Program helps advance the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) efforts to improve customer service, support veterans’ access to quality care, and provide a mechanism to resolve healthcare issues. Patient advocates document veterans’ concerns, communicate the resolution, provide follow-up and feedback, and identify trends for potential opportunities to improve medical facilities. In FY 2020, VHA tracked about 162,000 serious complaints in its patient advocate tracking systems.”
On a side topic, VA-OIG, how do you define a “significant complaint” and separate it from other types of complaints? Honest question, the information was, to quote my PCP, “remarkably” missing from your investigation report! Would the VA-OIG like to know why so many veterans’ complaints have risen to a “serious” level? You reported the exact problem:
“A complaint is considered resolved when the complainant communicates the outcome, and the record is closed in the tracking system.”
Maybe, the VA-OIG merely overlooked the logic problem, but complaints increase when the solution pushed down the throats of the veterans does not fix the actual situation. Honest question, no sarcasm involved. Is a “serious” complaint one where significant harm or death to the patient has occurred? Is a serious complaint one that breaks federal laws, EMTALA, comes readily to mind?
Having had “solutions” forced down my throat, speaking only for myself, I am thoroughly sick of having the patient advocates bureaucratize my complaint, then fail to act, and then compound the problem by quoting policy to me as a reason to close the complaint, when the VHA never have written policies and procedures! Maybe, you might want to look into the root causes of some of those “closed” complaints and ask root causation questions!
What did the VA-OIG find when they investigated the patient advocates?
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- VHA lacked adequate governance of the Patient Advocacy Program.
- VHA did not effectively issue and implement adequate policy, monitor complaint practices, and provide guidance to medical facility directors responsible for local program management.
- Patient advocates did not always enter complaints into the system.
- Even though complaint records generally appeared to be closed on time, patient advocates did not always document the communication of the outcomes to the complainants.
- The VA-OIG substantiated an inadequate program policy to identify clear expectations and responsibilities.
- The VA-OIG found that they (patient advocates) did not always adhere to the documentation requirements to show full complaint resolution.
- At the local and VISN levels, responsible personnel did not consistently analyze patient advocate tracking system complaints about trends.
Feel free to read the complete abomination of designed incompetence for yourself. Essentially the VA-OIG concluded that the VHA has been burning taxpayer money in a patient advocacy program, and the designed incompetence is so apparent it can be tracked from L2, where the James Webb telescope is located! Worse, you won’t need the James Webb telescope to see the designed incompetence!
Unfortunately, I could have guessed the first three findings without looking. Every VA program is designed so ineptly, reprehensibly led, criminally incompetent, and with such dastardly deceptive doings that fiction writers’ storylines have to be written better to sell books. You cannot make this stupidity up and make a profit. Hollywood would run screaming into the night if they made a true story about the ineptitude found at the VA!
Elected officials, where are you? The VA-OIG presents copies of their findings to you, and I have yet to witness a single one of you holding the VA Leadership criminally responsible for the failures at the VA. Even when the VA is killing hundreds of veterans, the US Congress refuses even to act upset, let alone scrutinize for a change! Remember how many veterans were intentionally killed in Phoenix waiting for treatment? How many VA employees lost their jobs and pensions or were forced in front of a judge for murder? It is a fair question, where are the elected officials in the legislative branch working to end the criminal “fraud, waste, abuse,” and designed incompetence in the executive branch?
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
I made the mistake of ranking the various government agencies on how intractable, unintelligent, and irresponsible they are. I ranked the IRS based upon previous experience more competent than the VA. That is a mistake I will not repeat any time soon, as the VA and the IRS are in a neck and neck race to the bottom! Consider how the IRS sends you paper mail notifications; if you have questions, you are referred to a website for answers and provided several customer service numbers. Except, when the website fails, you call the notifications’ numbers and are told that you need to visit the website for faster service. The website refers you back to customer service, whose phone queues are always so full you are automatically disconnected after being reminded to use the website for faster service.
Again, I implore you, the voters, to scrutinize your elected officials for their continued employment. Yes, start today. I know the elections are months away, but it requires time to evaluate performance, become knowledgeable, and prepare to act on election day. You deserve a better government, and those in office deserve to be unemployed!
Words fail to describe how much I detest seeing the same abuses week-after-week, month-after-month, and year-over-year. To witness the disaster known colloquially as The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), as told from the Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG). Not merely witnessing but also being abused by the VA leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth.
Take a moment, read the full articles reporting these crimes, and ask yourself, have ALL the guilty parties been held accountable before the law, or are some parties noticeably missing? If you reach different conclusions, please note this in the comments, and let’s discuss. Show me your thinking, I want to learn!
While the above are not all the reports from the VA-OIG launching 2022, they present the bulk of the criticisms and reflect the need for greater scrutiny and improved leadership at the VA. More to the point, these represent the danger the American public is in from a runaway government that keeps biggering (with a nod to The Lorax and Dr. Seuss)! The VA is abusing your veteran neighbors, and you are paying for it. Doesn’t this stir in you feelings motivating to action? If not, please ask yourself why. Do veterans deserve to be abused relentlessly? Do you like being complicit in a crime perpetrated by bureaucrats, cheered on by elected officials, and paid for by your tax dollars and the future of your children through forced taxation and out-of-control debt? The choice is yours, I know my choice, and I WILL continue to resist the government atrocities every step of the way!
Sometimes revisiting a topic is required to help promote urgency in learning. Other times revisiting a subject helps to broaden the mind to more of the problem. My intent in reviewing the topic of understanding is for both of these reasons. President Madison provides counsel that every American should be adhering to, regardless of political flavor, as the first policy in being a responsible citizen.
A Spanish-speaking Mexican colleague taught me this term, “pobrecito,” meaning “poor little one.” As I chronicle the VA ineptitudes, failures, criminal behaviors, and abusive actions, I am always conscious of the pobrecito, the poor little one, the poor victim who got harmed. Too often, the victims never receive any compensation, acknowledgment, or retribution, nothing for having become a victim of the VA. Too often, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) investigates long after the abuse has occurred, and the victims are not covered in the scope of the investigation, or worse, the victim was killed, and the family is left to mourn, and nobody can help.
Why chronicle the VA abuses; because the needs to be held accountable, speak the language, and have tougher skin and broader shoulders than the VA’s normal victims. The VA is slowly learning they can harm me, but they cannot shut me up! I will not stop fighting the VA for humane treatment, honorable service, and dedicated systems. The VA is sick because apathy and inertia were allowed to replace common sense and decency, leadership was replaced with cost accounting and bureaucratic red tape, and human kindness was eradicated and replaced with drones and robots. I know how to make the VA better; I do not have all the answers, but I know how to launch the revolution and begin cleaning the VA, and I will not stop calling upon those responsible for fixing the mess they created!
Let’s admit a truth for certain; COVID has been a farrago of gargantuan size from day 1. In acknowledging this, no blame is being proportioned to the front-line workers in any way, shape, or form. But, the administrators, policymakers, politicians, and government bureaucrats have certainly proved they could unscrew the inscrutable! Worse, the bureaucrats proved that their idiocy was highly contagious, infecting more people than COVID, spreading faster than COVID, and killing more people than COVID. Our proof of this concept arrives from 
Before continuing, we must pause and take a moment to send heartfelt congratulations to two VA Health Care Systems (VAHCS) who passed their comprehensive healthcare inspections (CHIp), if not with flying colors with significant improvement, and are deserving of the highest praise. Would the leaders of the Fort Harrison VAHCS in Montana and the Western Colorado VAHCS in Grand Junction please stand and take a bow. Your improvements, conduct, and capacity to achieve reflect that success is possible with good leadership. Keep up the good work; find ways to improve daily, and may continual success be ever yours!
Why? Why are victims left to rot, the assaulters and victimizers promoted, and the VA as an organization left in the hands of disreputable, dishonest, unethical, and immoral people? Why is the VA a culture of corruption, greed, envy, sloth, and disinterest when the US military is the exact opposite? America is not what is found in the halls of the VA, why has the VA been allowed to become something anathema to the American people?
I have three prescriptions hindered by the pharmacy practices of the VA, where the knock-off drug is useless, the mixture of the medication does not do as well as the original medicines prescribed, and where the cost of an ingredient has changed one medication to another and made the prescription less effective to the point where more medication is required for less overall effectiveness. If the patient has to take more medication, does that mean that the cost savings never happened or that the cost savings were pushed down to the customer? Does the patient even have a voice in the pharmaceutical decisions? Why?
In a 
A 
The following remains a case where there are too many lawyers and not enough truth to ascertain what in the world is going on. If you have further insight, please weigh in. “
The VA-OIG conducted a 
What was the desired intent of this despicable piece of self-righteous trash? I have had three calls to date from two different VISN’s and VAMC’s requesting me to get vaccinated, neigh demanding me to get vaccinated. Yet, the VA cannot even answer simple questions about my concerns for the vaccination, including future sterility, why vaccinated people are only catching the DELTA variant, how the vaccine interacts with medications already being taken, the neurological issues and heart issues from receiving the vaccine, and the list goes on and on! But the VA wants to send me a letter talking down to me and my intelligence trying to promote the vaccine and claiming this is like serving in the US Military again!
Every one of you should be ashamed! Each one who has sat by and watched your governor or president be the flaccid media mouthpiece of cheap science, faux interest in public health, and have voted to create inflation, destroy businesses, livelihoods, and communities, while cheering the destruction of law and order, you also need to be held accountable for your culpability in this most disgusting and distressing event, COVID-19! I absolutely require your retirement packages, repayment of all funds, and a dishonorable discharge from public service for every one of you! Why have so few of you even asked the simple questions regarding COVID; for example:
COVID
Enlighten me, how is the taxpayer to “understand and meet” “
Due to proposed legislation, the media has been quick to jump onto the tax bandwagon. The media are trying to drum up a lot of hype for the proposed bill, calling it fairness, catching the tax cheaters, working to bring “fairness” to the tax system, and progressing the tax system to close the loopholes improve tax enforcement. The “tax gap;” is $600 million in mostly tax errors because the tax system is too complicated. How do you tell the difference between tax cheaters and honest people trying to obey the tax authorities? Therein lies the problem, to the IRS, everyone making an error is guilty until proven innocent, and either way, you will pay something to the IRS to get out of trouble.
I do not care that 
I find the following ironic; the Federal Gasoline Excise Tax is actually two taxes combined. $0.01 per gallon is paid as the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) fee. Why is this ironic; because the government LUSTs after all types of money to misappropriate. Before creating acronyms, one would think that the government would consider how much of a joke those acronyms will make. One of the seven deadly sins that are constantly causing scandals for politicians, LUST! Yes, I find this tax acronym very ironic and applicable to the discussion on why the roads and other infrastructure is rated as a C- and falling. I find LUST very appropriate to the discussion on the misappropriation of funds and how the government wants to increase taxes to pay for something already well funded but where the money is consistently diverted.
Please note that each state will have additional taxes, fees, surcharges, and tax projects built into the cost of a gallon of gas or diesel, aviation, or propane. Fuel taxes are a tax scheme that seems to always pay for anything but roads, bridges, and infrastructure. Some basic facts regarding gas taxes:
Fuel taxes
Chris LeDoux sings a song, “
Now, the Federal Government has a bunch of fuel taxes and surcharges (taxes called a fee) about to expire. The question every voter in America needs to ask themselves is this, “Did the government properly use the funds dedicated to infrastructure?” If so, then the fuel taxes should continue at the Federal level. If not, then the fuel taxes should cease, for the government refuses to spend money according to the purpose it was collected. Every single state in the union should be asking the same question and answering accordingly.
Hence the reason why fuel taxes are considered a tax scheme! If you pass the buck enough, nothing gets done, and the money collected can be used in other projects while responsibility is determined. Except, there is no money to fix the problem when the responsibility is determined, and the wheel just keeps spinning around. Are you sick and tired of the games politicians play, yet? Now, imagine your electric bill going up to pay for the fuel taxes not paid for by electric car owners, and tell me about proper government action and accountability. My friend could not sue because responsibility cannot be determined; his insurance would not pay for the damages because the road damaged his vehicle; guess who was out almost $10,000.
Some states are changing how the gasoline and other fuel taxes, including electricity due to the rise in electric vehicles on the road, are being priced and collected. However, the problem is not the tax; it’s the fact that the tax never pays for what it was intended to when collected. Some states got an increase in fuel taxes through their state legislatures this year. Other states and the Federal Government are taking fuel taxes up in the coming months or the next legislating session. But, not a single politician, anywhere in America, has stepped up to state the obvious, the current taxes collected are sufficient to pay for roads and bridges; we have to allocate more of the current money collected to roads and bridges.
Is the problem apparent? How many of your state taxes, lotteries, and other fees are supposed to pay for education? Yet, education always seems never to have enough money. How many taxes and fees go into the Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Transportation, all of which are supposed to pay for infrastructure, e.g., roads, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, highways, etc.? How much is the pension crisis costing your state, driving taxes and fees upwards, but the money never is delivered to pay down and lessen the pension crisis?
We must tie political decisions to misappropriate funds to the legislators and executives making the decisions. Thus, holding accountable the people who are being poor managers of the people’s money. More importantly, when re-election decisions are made, the media, the influencers, and the political parties need to report this information. Being able to hide funding shenanigans and criminal activities should never occur; businesses cannot do this, the government should not be able to do this. Audits, investigations, and transparency are critical to putting the right people out of office and into prison, and keeping the honest and faithful stewards in office and working.
As sure as carts to horses and ducks to water, a Federal tax, fee, or surcharge, will be found shortly on your 
DNC-Consulting 