In early March, not quite two months into Donald Trump’s second term, the president’s Veterans Affairs Department announced that it was prepared to fire tens of thousands of workers as part of an agency-wide reorganization. Soon after, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins tried to defend the move, arguing that the federal government “does not exist to employ people.”
It was a wildly unpersuasive defense: No one has ever argued that the federal government exists to employ people. Rather, the point has always been that those who work at agencies such as the VA are there to serve Americans who need assistance, and mass layoffs likely mean fewer services to those who can ill-afford the cuts.
The Cabinet secretary added, “We’ll be making major changes, so get used to it.”
Those “major changes” are still unfolding at the VA. The Washington Post reported:
The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to abruptly eliminate as many as 35,000 health care positions this month, mostly unfilled jobs including doctors, nurses and support staff, according to an internal memo, VA staffers and congressional aides.
The cuts come after a massive reorganization effort already resulted in the loss of almost 30,000 employees this year.
When Collins testified about VA cuts in the spring, the secretary told senators that, from his perspective, “adding more employees to the system doesn’t automatically equal better results.”
Perhaps not, though Collins made no effort to explain why he and Trump administration believe fewer employees doing more work will lead to better results.
The secretary went on to tell lawmakers in May that the planned mass firings would focus on those filling “nonessential roles,” such as interior designers and those who work in diversity, equity and inclusion.
But according to the Post’s report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, Collins’ current plan involves cuts to the VA’s health care workforce, not interior designers. A spokesperson for the Cabinet agency confirmed the planned cuts, telling the Post that the affected positions are “mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary.” Critics aren’t buying it. The progressive veterans advocacy group VoteVets called the planned cuts “outrageous,” adding, “It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized.” Similarly, Thomas Dargon Jr., the deputy general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 320,000 VA employees, told the Post, “The VA has been chronically understaffed for years, and employees are obviously going to be facing the brunt of any further job cuts or reorganization that results in employees having to do more work with less.” This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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