Donald Trump’s secretary of veterans affairs is bragging about his plans to make extra cuts to the division and its well being care system.
Doug Collins informed the New York Submit in an interview printed March 22 that the VA is “not an employment agency” because the division scurries to chop tons of of contracts and slash varied applications from accessible well being protection.
Whereas the previous Home member claimed he wasn’t eliminating very important veterans’ well being care, he shortly added that remedy for transgender veterans didn’t match the invoice of crucial medical care.
Collins particularly focused gender-affirming care and medical companies supplied to transgender individuals. In keeping with knowledge provided to the Submit by the company, transgender veterans make up one-tenth of 1% of 9.1 million veterans enrolled within the VA’s well being care program.
However Collins additionally bragged about slicing out another egregious contracts that he claimed had been mucking up the funds.
“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 informed the Submit.
Like his fellow Trump Cupboard members, Collins has focused company staff beneath the guise of stomping out variety, fairness, and inclusion, or DEI. The secretary slashed a piece of his workforce and canceled contracts that had been allegedly associated to the Trump-hated acronym.
Per the outlet, Collins’ deliberate cuts will save $914 million. However the info supplied by the Submit can’t be independently verified by Each day Kos presently.
As a result of many different situations by which multibillionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity and different federal companies have incorrectly reported “savings,” it’s unclear whether or not these numbers are correct.
It’s additionally not unusual for departments to brag about slicing funding for alleged wasteful applications that turned out to be one thing arguably totally different.
As for the person behind these cuts, Collins is a former Baptist minister with an attention-grabbing story behind his rise to Trump’s Cupboard. Collins was in Georgia politics for fairly a while, however he actually made a reputation for himself in the course of the 2019 probe by particular counsel Robert Mueller into Russian election interference. The Republican congressman was one among Trump’s largest allies in the course of the probe and finally wrote a e-book claiming Democrats sought to question Trump as revenge for his victory over Hilary Clinton within the 2016 presidential election.
However ass-kissing books apart, now that Collins has his dream gig of creating veterans’ lives worse, Democrats are demanding that he reply for his actions.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut known as on Collins to testify at a casual listening to subsequent week to debate the cuts he’s made to the VA, together with an anticipated 80,000 layoffs.
Unsurprisingly, Collins is predicted to show down the invitation.
Many teams and companies have been hit exhausting since Trump took workplace in January, however veterans appear to be one among his administration’s larger targets. Not solely is their well being care protection and workforce being gutted, however the inhabitants is taking different hits as properly.
The standard of psychological well being care supplied to veterans has taken a nosedive within the title of “efficiency,” and a division that investigates disparities in how the federal government gives incapacity compensation has been shuttered.
It’s unclear what the Trump administration’s finish purpose is, however those that advocate for veterans are all too conscious of the doubtless 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 Venture, mentioned to ProPublica on the closure of the VA’s Workplace of Fairness Assurance.
“The consequences will be dire, wide-reaching and deadly,” he warned.
