VA top among dishonoring veterans
THE SANANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

If anyone ever needed an advocate, it is a soldier in wartime, risking his or her life thousands of miles from home.

As the death counts climb in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, the scandals are climbing as well.

In February, the Washington Post ran a series of articles that shocked the nation, revealing the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"We need to bring the Army people in and say, 'What the hell is going on?'" Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, told his colleagues in the House.

One month later, the Post expanded its probe, uncovering similar conditions at Veterans Administration hospitals throughout the nation.

Both investigations illustrated years of neglect, an outrageous show of disrespect to our men and women who give so much.

Well, the outrage continues.

An investigation by the Associated Press has raised conflict-of-interest questions involving VA officials who received "hefty" performance bonuses while serving on the boards tasked with recommending the payments.

The Associated Press obtained documents showing that 21 officials, all of them members of the VA performance review boards, received more than $500,000 in payments.

Among these members, according to the wire service, were senior officials who helped craft the VA budget that came up $1.3 billion short, thus jeopardizing health care for veterans.

"This is a scandal in the making," Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, told the wire service.

These officials are not the first bureaucrats to hold their own pocketbooks above the public interest, and they will not be the last.

But if the allegations are correct, these transgressions go beyond mere malfeasance.

They victimize a group that, above all others in America, deserves the best treatment this country can offer.

Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., has introduced a bill that would freeze VA bonuses for "senior politically appointed officials" until the agency trims its disability claims backlog to below 100,000 cases.

The legislation represents a good start.

Why should veterans be denied payments while officials receive bonuses they do not deserve?

State parks at crucial crossroad

Texas' horribly neglected state parks system is at a crucial crossroads. Its fate now rests in the hands of Texas House and Senate budget writers.

In recent years, that's been a sure-fire recipe for disaster. But this year, it appears that the money-starved parks system might finally get the dramatic funding increase that it so clearly needs.

Recent reports indicated that funding might rise from a starvation level of less than $25 million to as much as $85 million.

That could give the system desperately needed money to replace worn-out equipment and vehicles, hire new staffers to compensate for previous cutbacks, reestablish curtailed programs and perhaps even buy land for additional park space to serve fast-growing urban areas such as Dallas-Fort Worth.

Budget writers also should ensure that the $9.6 million that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is receiving for selling a 400-acre tract at Eagle Mountain Lake in northwest Tarrant County can go toward acquiring a site for a large regional state park in North Texas, as Gov. Rick Perry and Parks and Wildlife Commission Chairman Joseph Fitzsimons have urged.

That's only fair.

The state is getting the $9.6 million largely from local government and private donors in Tarrant County, and the lake site initially had been purchased by the state for a state park but never was developed. The Eagle Mountain site is to become a local, nature-oriented park.

Parks lovers raised a public outcry after media reports by the Star-Telegram and others last year of the pathetic deterioration of the parks system.

Texas ranks 49th among the 50 states in parks funding. It's up to the Legislature to ensure that the state once again becomes a responsible steward of the more than 100 parks and natural areas under its jurisdiction.

-- Fort Worth Star-Telegram