{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-va-medical-center-no-tv-you/", "VA Medical Center \u2013 No TV for You", "2016-09-20", "2016", "2016-09", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight Subcommittee, released the latest edition of \u201cThe Waste Report,\u201d an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.\n\nIn September 2013, as part of a \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d spending rush, the Detroit VA Medical Center spent over $300,000 on televisions and accessories for upgrades to patient rooms. Three years later, the vast majority of the televisions, which turned out to be the wrong model, sit in storage with expired warranties, still waiting for the project to begin construction. Dr. Paul\u2019s Report reveals the full story.\n\nThe Federal Spending Oversight Subcommittee has established an email address, Report_Waste@HAGAC.Senate.gov, where federal employees can report wasteful end-of-year spending. More information can be found HERE.\n\nYou can find \u201cThe Waste Report\u201d HERE or below.\n\n***\n\nWaste Report readers will remember an edition from earlier this year, \u201cVeterans Health Administration: It\u2019s Not About Logistics,\u201d where we reported on the VA leaving urology equipment unused for months. Because the equipment was leased, the VA made over $200k in payments for the equipment while it sat in storage. Unfortunately, it seems the VA has outdone that waste \u2013 this time spending over $300k on TVs that have been sitting in storage for nearly three years.[1]\n\nThe VA Inspector General reports that, in 2013, the Detroit VA Medical Center wanted to upgrade TVs in patient rooms. Probably not a bad idea and certainly a benefit to our veterans in a difficult time. Unfortunately, the project included upgrading the whole TV system, which required some amount of construction. Rather than waiting for construction to begin (or even be scheduled), the VA saw fit in September 2013 to purchase 300 TVs and accessories immediately at a cost of $311k.[2]\n\nSince the facility was not ready for the TVs, they went to storage,[3] where they have sat for nearly three years. The IG\u2019s report even states that \u201cas of June 21, 2016, the facility had not yet awarded the contract to begin construction.\u201d[4] So these TVs will continue to sit for some time. By the way, the warranties expired in January 2015.[5]\n\nWhat is worse, these dormant TVs are not even the right ones for the planned upgrade. According to the IG, the project plan calls for TVs that use an Ethernet feed, but the ones the VA purchased use an increasingly outdated coaxial feed. So the VA modified the project at an additional cost of $19k \u2013 to accommodate the TVs still in storage.[6]\n\nYou might ask, how did something like this happen? Well, the culprit seems to be the \u201cUse it or Lose it\u201d paradigm of government spending: spend money before it expires at the end of the fiscal year. Remember, the TVs were purchased in September 2013, just before the end of the federal government\u2019s fiscal year. As the IG reports, \u201cDespite not needing the TVs \u2026 the Chief of Volunteer and Community Relations reported the facility purchased them because they had funds available.\u201d[7]\n\n\u201cUse it or lose it\u201d is a big problem. Research indicates that \u201cspending in the last week of the year is 4.9 times higher than the rest-of-the-year weekly average,\u201d while \u201cquality scores for year-end projects are 2.2 to 5.6 times more likely to be below the central value [lower quality].\u201d[8] As in this case, you might end up buying TVs you do not need and which are the wrong model.\n\nChairman Paul and the FSO subcommittee have worked to bring the perils of \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d spending to public attention, both with a hearing on the subject last September and legislation (S.1378)[9] that incentivizes federal employees against end-of-year-spending binges while helping to reduce the deficit.\n\nThe IG\u2019s report put it best when it said the unneeded TV purchases \u201cprevented the use of about $292,500 that could have been better spent on other facility priorities.\u201d[10] Of course, the top priority of the VA should be veterans.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T21:01:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-va-medical-center-no-tv-you/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7841726765036583, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}