In the first six weeks of work, U.S. Veterans Affairs Director Doug Collins looked at less than 2% of agency contracts.
“The VA was paying for PowerPoint slides and meeting notes, watering plants and consulting contracts to do the work we should do ourselves,” he said in a post this week.
Needless to say, it goes without saying that I affirm the voice training of the gender that supports DEI training, private parts for prosthetic leg, and gender that support hair removal.
But that spending era is over – and he hasn't apologized for it.
“I won't allow the VA to become a whiplash post any more. We're actually going to solve the problem and continue our work, and then we're in a union that's going to complain to anyone on the hill,” he said.
“We need to make sure we are doing what is mandatory. “They will still have their interests and healthcare. But we need to remember that we are a service organization, not an employment agency.”
To date, Collins has saved $900 million by canceling millions of dollars of non-disputed contracts, and another $14 million by dumping contracts with Dei employees.
On Monday, he ended treatment for gender discomfort and redistributed funds to treat seriously injured veterans and amputees. The agency previously covered hormone therapy, prosthetic genitals and breasts, hair loss, voice training, and other so-called “gender maintenance care.”
Transgender people make up only about 10% of the 9.1 million veterans enrolled at VA Healthcare,” according to the agency.
Perhaps the biggest savings could come from forced reductions. The department has already had 2,400 employees, and a memo leaked from Elon Musk-led government efficiency earlier this month recommended firing of 80,000 people.
If implemented, the end of that number will return the VA to its 2019 staffing level.
During former President Biden's term, the total number of VA full-time staff has increased by more than 52,000 employees, a VA spokesperson said. This is expected to cut two-thirds of the sector's expanded workforce.
“The previous administration added tens of thousands of employees, but frankly, we don't know what they were hired for because we don't see the profit,” Collins told the Post.
Biden took a staggering $89 billion in the VA's budget during his term, but Collins said he wouldn't show anything to the last administration.
In 2024, the inspector's office recorded inappropriate payments of hundreds of millions of dollars and questioned the costs under Biden.
Meanwhile, the average VA waiting times for primary care, mental health care and specialized care all increased significantly between 2021 and 2024, according to a VA spokesman. Disability benefits in the sector claim that the backlog has reached its highest level since last year in 2013.
The veteran suicide did not improve either. The VA spent $571 million on suicide prevention outreach last year — up from $4.4 million in 2008 — but the results remain so badly the same, with around 6,500 veterans taking their lives a year.
“They felt like money and people were the solution, but we quickly came to know that the problem with the VA is that we need to be better stewards of the resources we were given,” Collins said.
