VA officials entered false projected savings, known as management efficiencies, into healthcare budget requests. The efficiencies never came about, since few programs existed to implement them.

Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Barbara Ann Radnofsky responded to these revelations:

"The buck should have stopped with my opponent, who claims to be a Republican congressional leader and who oversees the appropriations subcommittee on veterans' affairs. Instead, for years Hutchison has rubberstamped the VA's requests for inadequate funding despite clear evidence that the VA underestimated the needs. Now is the time her to denounce and punish the wrongdoers, ensure that the VA will never again desert our veterans, and explain what she knew about the collusion and when.

"My opponent's anti-veteran votes are listed on our issues chart at www.radnofsky.com. In April 2005 she wrongly defended the VA budget in the face of evidence from experts and every major veterans' organization that the Veterans Administration had grossly underestimated the needs of veterans, particulalrly those veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and those aging veterans of our previous campaigns and wars.