mr. violante.e recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, vice chairman and members of the committee. thank you for inviting dvd does for today but when allegations of secret waiting lists came to light we were outraged. like you we wanted to wait for all the facts before reaching final conclusions. today there is no longer any doubt that the serious problems uncovered by this committee invalidated by va, oig are real and must be corrected. over a decade ago va face a moral crisis. it may 2003 a presidential task force, pdf, appointed by president bush reported the following, and i'll quote. from this book. as of july 2003 at least 236,000 veterans were waiting six months or more for first appointments or initial follow-up. a clear indication, including occasion of lack of sufficient capacity, or at a minimum a lack of adequate resources to provide required care, end quote. .pdf concluded there was a mismatch in va between demand for access and available funding. as pointed out earlier, at a hearin

mr. violante says the other secretaries lied. thank you, sir. [laughter] mr. tocano, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i used to be on the board of trustees, and, you know, all the administrators come to me, and they all kind of tow the administration line. it's not a matter of lying or not lying, it's a matter of just that's just the way it is in the administration. and that would be true of a republican or democratic administration. you'd want loyal people underneath you. so, you know, real quickly if you could answer almost yes or no, would you say that your organizations and your members basically want to mend, not end the v.a.? ms. jones? >> yes. we'd like to restore the v.a. and restore the veterans' trust in the v.a. >> thank you. >> we absolutely want to restore trust in v.a. and build the system that has the capacity to care for the needs of veterans. >> mr. blake? >> yes. >> our members want the v.a. >> we want to save the v.a. but fix it. >> absolutely. we're all in favor of mending and not ending the v.a. >> let's just return the other