Yo, Mr. President!

If you had the $160Mil for this:

The Bush administration has decided not to offer free credit monitoring to 26.5 million veterans and military personnel whose personal information was on computer equipment stolen from the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs analyst in May.

Rob Portman, the White House budget director, wrote House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday withdrawing the administration's request for $160.5 million to pay for a year of free credit monitoring and citing the June 28 recovery of the stolen laptop and external hard drive by police. The FBI said it had a "high degree of confidence" that thieves had not accessed the files containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of millions of veterans and active-duty military personnel.

"On the basis of the FBI's analysis, the administration has concluded that credit monitoring services and the associated funding will no longer be necessary," Portman wrote.

Cool, I already had free credit monitoring because I reported I might be the victim of identity theft and the credit agencies automatically did it for... free. But that's a different gripe.

How about you give the VA the money anyway? For... oh, I dunno, Veterans Affairs stuff like... health care? Fund that PTSD treatment? Y'know, mission-type stuff. You had $160 million for a CYA clean-up...

Just sayin'.

I know, I know, I'm just a greedy vet.

Read the WashPost article here.