Holy hell, they hired 83,000 people since 2019? Does no one care we are $36T in debt? 40% of our income taxes go to paying just the interest on our debt!
Ignoring the obvious humanitarian aspect of it (veteran suicide rate, societal promises of healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022), politically you have to wonder why do this. Vets usually vote conservative, are often employed by the VA. It's an economically unstable time with other administration policies like tariffs. It won't reduce the deficit by any significant %. VA hospitals are often a source of general healthcare to fill gaps in the system.
It's so difficult to evaluate this stuff from afar.
In 2019 there were 399,000 workers. Now 482,000. In 2022, the Biden admin tried to slash 50,000 workers and was stymied, and then the VA hired 61,000 the following year.
What's the right number? I'm sure people leaning one way politically will confidently say one thing, though they may have said something else in 2022, and vice versa. I find it hard to have a problem with a plan if its at least partially originating internally, and its hard to say there's no problem if the current and previous administration were both trying to curtail growth.
The Administration actions are all to fund the $4.5 trillion tax cut.
* DOGE - Cut Expenses
* Tariff - Bring Revenue (another form of Tax, the victimized countries can't/don't influence USA politics); this is essentially Sales/VAT Tax without being said as Sales/VAT Tax.
* Cutting Aids - Cut Expenses
* Ukraine - Cut Expenses
They're looking for all avenue to fund $4.5 trillion tax cut for the Billionaires.
That is the main logic and reason behind all these moves, not the smoke and mirror they said to the media.
Hard to say how this will actually go but as a vet, I've had some pretty poor experiences with the government support networks as a whole, and the VA is no exception; I know the VA has improved from the horror days of 03-06 but it certainly feels like it could have done so much more, especially after we got out of Iraq and the overall operation tempo dropped.
I have friends who were hurt 15+ years ago now, and have been through the ups and downs of the VA system; its just sad that after all that time they're still struggling (occasionally at least) with basic things and keeping their care going.