The Department of Veterans Affairs has struggled for years to manage its massive, decentralized acquisition system, and a new GAO report makes clear that little has fundamentally changed. VA’s acquisition management has remained on GAO’s High Risk List since 2019, plagued by inconsistent leadership, lack of strategic planning, and a sprawling contracting workforce spread across multiple offices and administrations. A 2015 independent review had already flagged the system as “unduly complex and duplicative,” yet a decade later, the same structural dysfunctions persist — a pattern that raises serious questions about institutional will to reform a system that benefits entrenched interests.
The core problem is structural: contracting authority is fragmented across the Veterans Health Administration and numerous department-level offices, creating redundancy, oversight gaps, and fertile ground for wasteful or mismanaged spending. A decentralized acquisition apparatus of this scale, lacking unified strategic direction, is precisely the kind of system described in War Is Still A Racket — one where accountability is diffused, vendors gain outsized leverage, and taxpayers bear the cost. Until VA undertakes genuine structural consolidation aligned with leading procurement practices, the cycle of high-risk designations, reform pledges, and continued dysfunction is likely to continue at the expense of both veterans and the public trust.