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Hating Veterans, Hating America [1]
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Date: 2025-03-08
The Senate confirmed Doug Collins as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on February 4, 2025, by a vote of 77–23. Veterans will soon learn that only 23 senators voted correctly. Collins took office the following day and posted a tweet/X to the VA employees: “The VA will be so America-first focused, because America first puts our veterans first. To the employees at the VA, you’re not going to have a better friend than me, because I’m gonna raise the bar. I’m gonna hold you accountable. Because we have a job to do.”
A VA employee may have noted to themselves: “Put our veterans first.” Got it! “You’re not going to have a better friend than me.” Super!
But a month later, on March 5, 2025, Collins lamely explained in a video: “Now, we regret anyone who loses their job, and it’s extraordinarily difficult for me, especially as a VA leader and your secretary, to make these types of decisions. But the federal government does not exist to employ people. It exists to serve people.”
His explanation is ironic on so many levels. The government “existed” to employ Collins for over 20 years, and he is still employed. He served as an Air Force Reserve chaplain since 2002 and also pastored a church for eleven years, so that you might expect some compassion. Oh, but he was also a Congressional Republican—so, no. The VA may have even served Collins, but privacy laws prevent that information from being made public.
It is distressing that Collins did not spend his first month in office learning more about the VA’s history. The public seems to have forgotten the current state of the VA and why it’s in this position. The plan to return to 2019 staffing levels by cutting 80,000 employees from the VA, as he announced on March 5, 2025, is absurd.
Do these three clowns, Trump, Musk, and Collins, remember the scandal in 2014 when it was revealed that VA hospitals had secret waitlists that delayed care for veterans? The public was so outraged that the VA Secretary Eric Shinseki had to resign. Congress was compelled to pass the VA Choice Act, increasing funding and access to care, not cutting it.
Then, in 2022, when Senate Republicans blocked the PACT Act, which expanded healthcare for veterans exposed to burn pits and toxic substances, there was a huge outcry. Veterans’ groups camped out on Capitol Hill, and figures like Jon Stewart became vocal advocates. This pressure ultimately led to the bill’s passage—Veterans 1, Senate Republicans, 0. Harming veterans is political suicide.
On February 14, 2025, Valentine’s Day, proof that cruelty is the point, 1,000 probationary employees at the VA were terminated at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). A judge later ruled that the OPM had broken the law when it ordered other federal agencies to terminate thousands of “probationary” employees. On February 24, 2025, an additional 1,400 VA employees were terminated.
Then, on February 25, 2025, Collins—stupid is as stupid does—announced that 875 VA contracts totaling $2 billion were being eliminated. In the—fire, ready, aim wisdom of the Trump administration—the next day, the elimination of these contracts was suspended because many of the contracts were for vital VA services like sterilizing medical instruments used for surgeries, cancer programs, certifying the safety of imaging machines in VA hospitals, burial services, and other instances of imagined “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
If Social Security is the third rail of government, veterans are the hot wire with 440 amps—lethal.
Collins, Musk, and Trump seem to be mathematically challenged. Returning to 2019 staffing levels ignores the impact of the 2022 PACT Act. The number of veterans seeking care at the VA increased dramatically. Between 2019 and 2025, the number of veterans receiving VA services increased by 34%, from 6.8 million to 9.1 million. In response, the VA increased the number of employees by 18%, from 399,000 to 470,000—an efficient response. A massive reduction in force to 2019 levels will surely lead to a significant decline in the quality of VA healthcare—longer wait times, many veterans not being seen, interruptions in critical care, an increase in suicides, and more, taking the VA back to the ineptitude of 2014. What is this nonsense that Congressional Republicans want to increase military spending by $25 billion while cutting the VA by as much as $10 billion?
On March 6, 2025, a cabinet meeting hastily scheduled by Trump exposed blowback by cabinet secretaries against Musk. There were a number of heated exchanges with Musk, beginning with Marco Rubio. The cabinet secretaries assumed that they were responsible for their departments, only to learn that Musk had the real authority.
In that meeting, Collins said that in place of a blunt instrument, like Musk’s famous chainsaw, something like a scalpel was needed. Trump agreed that Collins should get rid of the bad ones while keeping the smart ones. If this is the strategy of the most powerful person in the world, we are in more trouble than we imagined. The world is far more complex than smart and bad. And how in the world does Collins think he is going to eliminate 80,000 employees using a scalpel.
In any event, the back and forth led to Trump capitulating, indicating that cabinet secretaries would be in charge going forward, with the Musk team advising.
Trump may finally have found himself between a rock and a hard place. At a press conference about the World Cup yesterday, March 7, 2025, Gabe Gutierrez, NBC News Senior White House Correspondent, asked, “Who has more authority, Elon Musk or the Cabinet secretaries?” Trump responded, “Any more questions? On the World Cup.” Forget the World Cup idiot; America has hundreds of questions. What happens when Musk exercises his will again because he is anything but patient? What then, Mr. President?
It is likely that there is not as much fraud, waste, and abuse as the Republicans have long complained about. It may be that many of the cuts have already reached the bone. The intended consequences of maiming the federal government will be multiplied by the unintended consequences of a massive public uprising of protest due to poor or no service that will make the recent small skirmishes at Republican town halls seem positively quaint.
If Collins does not yet understand this, he soon will. He is charged with the duty of care, not dereliction of duty. Veterans are a powerful constituency and a core part of the Trump base. They will not go quietly into that good night. Veterans and anyone who loves them must understand this is war. Fight now before it is too late.
Time left to January 20, 2029: 1,413 days
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