GOP senator: Firing Shinseki won’t fix VA

A GOP senator suggests that embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki should keep his job.

A trio of Republican senators have called for Shinseki’s resignation amid reports that veterans were denied healthcare services. But Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats cautioned that the VA chief oversees a dysfunctional organization: “Just by firing the coach doesn’t solve the problem … I want to take a much broader look than just simply satisfying people [to] say, ‘Oh we fired the top guy and now everything is going to be fine.’ “

{mosads}Coats, a veteran, added that “there’s cultural problems that go way down deep in the VA system.”

Shinseki appeared before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Thursday morning.

Top-ranking Republican senators, including Minority Whip John Cornyn (Texas), National Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Jerry Moran (Kan.) and Veterans Affairs’s Committee ranking member Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), have called for Shinseki’s resignation.