Kaine and Warner demand answers on proposed VA cuts
Two Virginia lawmakers are seeking answers from the Trump administration over proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Wednesday that they are demanding answers from Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins regarding his plans to cut more than 80,000 VA employees this year, including at least 20,000 veterans.
In a joint statement, Kaine and Warner said the proposed cuts would have a harmful impact on veterans’ earned care and benefits.
“We write today regarding a memo issued by your Chief of Staff on March 4, and later proudly announced by you via Twitter, detailing a plan to reduce the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) workforce to 2019 levels,” Kaine and Warner said in the joint statement. “Over the past five years, there have been monumental bipartisan expansions and improvements to veterans’ health care and benefits. Your proposal puts all of them at risk. And we believe it is blatantly dishonest to claim veterans’ health care and benefits will not be impacted by the termination of up to 83,000 employees, including 20,000 veterans.”
“Since 2019, through the PACT Act, VA has implemented the largest expansion of eligibility for earned care and benefits to veterans and their families in decades,” Kaine and Warner continued in the joint statement. “Fewer staff to provide outpatient appointments will cause veterans to wait longer for care, and the costs of that care will only increase over time as their medical conditions worsen. Reductions in mental health care will undoubtedly leave more veterans abandoned as they attempt to overcome the invisible wounds of war. Rolling back caregiver support will result in more veterans placed in long-term care, at a much greater cost to the Department and severely limiting quality of life for them and their families. Since VA’s solemn mission is to serve veterans and put them first, we would like to see evidence of how these cuts will impact the 20,000 veterans — making up 25 percent of the approximately 80,000 employees to be cut — you plan to terminate, as well as and the millions of veterans they served.”
Kaine and Warner are asking the Trump administration to reverse this decision.
They were joined in the letter by multiple Democrats, including Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY),U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).