The West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center is composed of 387 prime real-estate acres in West L.A.  Mansions and playgrounds of the city's elite, including the Bel Air Country Club and the Beverly Hills estates of Sylvester Stallone, Barry Bonds and Tim McGraw (among many other celebrities) surround the plot - an area twice the size of the D.C. National Mall. 

As the Veteran population in the area falls on the low end of the national averages and huge portions of the facility were unused, the Department of Veteran's Affairs set up a process in 2002 to study its infrastructure to determine if the facility could be downsized.  If downsized, extra land not being used by the facility would be sold to developers to raise revenue for veterans' needs.

The study revealed that 200-plus acres of the facility could be leased or sold for upwards of $4 billion in revenue.  The money would be incorporated into the VA's budget and distributed in the form of medical care for veterans across the country.

The decision seems like a no-brainer that any politician would support, given recent calls to improve veteran care.  As one Wall Street Journal Reporter wrote, "you'd think no elected representative could possibly have the chutzpah [nerve] to impede the VA's considered attempts to inject efficiency into its facilities and provide better care for its constituents."