Veterans Affairs chief looks to slash agency—even if veterans suffer

Donald Trump’s secretary of veterans affairs is bragging about his plans to make more cuts to the department and its health care system.

Doug Collins told the New York Post in an interview published March 22 that the VA is “not an employment agency” as the department scurries to cut hundreds of contracts and slash various programs from available health coverage.  

While the former House member claimed he wasn’t getting rid of vital veterans’ health care, he quickly added that treatment for transgender veterans did not fit the bill of necessary medical care. 

Collins specifically targeted gender-affirming care and medical services offered to transgender people. According to data supplied to the Post by the agency, transgender veterans make up one-tenth of 1% of 9.1 million veterans enrolled in the VA’s health care program. 

But Collins also bragged about cutting out some other egregious contracts that he claimed were mucking up the budget. 

“The VA was paying for PowerPoint slides and meeting notes, for the watering of plants, and consulting contracts to do the work that we should be doing ourselves,” he told the Post.

Like his fellow Trump Cabinet members, Collins has targeted agency employees under the guise of stomping out diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. The secretary slashed a chunk of his workforce and canceled contracts that were allegedly related to the Trump-hated acronym. 

Per the outlet, Collins’ planned cuts will save $914 million. But the information provided by the Post cannot be independently verified by Daily Kos at this time.

Due to many other instances in which multibillionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and other federal agencies have incorrectly reported “savings,” it is unclear whether these numbers are accurate. 

It’s also not uncommon for departments to brag about cutting funding for alleged wasteful programs that turned out to be something arguably different. 

As for the man behind these cuts, Collins is a former Baptist minister with an interesting story behind his rise to Trump’s Cabinet. Collins was in Georgia politics for quite some time, but he really made a name for himself during the 2019 probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian election interference. The Republican congressman was one of Trump’s biggest allies during the probe and eventually wrote a book claiming Democrats sought to impeach Trump as revenge for his victory over Hilary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. 

But ass-kissing books aside, now that Collins has his dream gig of making veterans’ lives worse, Democrats are demanding that he answer for his actions. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called on Collins to testify at an informal hearing next week to discuss the cuts he’s made to the VA, including an expected 80,000 layoffs. 

Unsurprisingly, Collins is expected to turn down the invitation. 

Many groups and agencies have been hit hard since Trump took office in January, but veterans seem to be one of his administration’s bigger targets. Not only is their health care coverage and workforce being gutted, but the population is taking other hits as well. 

The quality of mental health care provided to veterans has taken a nosedive in the name of “efficiency,” and a department that investigates disparities in how the government provides disability compensation has been shuttered. 

It’s unclear what the Trump administration’s end goal is, but those who advocate for veterans are all too aware of the potentially catastrophic impacts. 

“It’s a first step toward gutting the second-largest agency in our federal government,” Richard Brookshire, co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, said to ProPublica on the closure of the VA's Office of Equity Assurance. 

“The consequences will be dire, wide-reaching and deadly,” he warned.