Veterans Are Speaking Out on the Trump Administration's Plans to Cut the VA's Budget
Retired U.S. Marine Stephen Watson stands outside his
home, Monday, March 3, 2025, in Jesup, Ga. (Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Posted: March 5, 2025 --- Associated
Press | By Ben Finley and Stephen Groves
Published March 5, 2025, at 9:09am ET
NORFOLK, Va. — Stephen Watson served in the Marines for 22 years and receives care through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)for a traumatic brain injury (TBI). He supports Trump and adviser Elon Musk's cost-cutting program — even if it affects the VA. "We're no better because we're veterans,” said Watson, 68, of Jesup, Georgia. "We all need to take a step back and realize that everybody’s gonna have to take a little bit on the chin to get these budget matters under control.”
Gregg Bafundo served during the 1st Gulf War
and has nerve damage to his feet from carrying loads of weight as a Marine
mortarman. He says he may need to turn to the VA for care after being fired as
a wilderness ranger and firefighter through the layoffs at the U.S. Forest
Service.
"They’re going to put guys like me and my fellow Marines
that rely on the VA in the ground,” said Bafundo, 53, who lives in Tonasket,
Washington. The Trump administration's move to end hundreds of VA contracts
— halted after public outcry —
and ongoing layoffs are affecting the nation's veterans, a critical and
politically influential constituency. More than 9 million veterans get physical
and mental health care from the VA, which is now being examined by Musk's Department of Government
Efficiency.
The VA manages a $350 billion-plus budget and
oversees nearly 200 medical centers and hospitals, many in Republican-led
states and districts. Veterans have shown up at town hall-style meetings to
voice their anger, and groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) are
mobilizing against cuts.
Veterans were much likelier to support Trump, a
Republican, than Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, in November’s
presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of
the American electorate conducted in all 50 states. Nearly 6 in 10 voters who
are veterans backed Trump, while about 4 in 10 voted for Harris.
Joy Ilem, national legislative director for the nonpartisan group Disabled American Veterans, said her group was studying how the ongoing cuts might affect care. "You could lose trust among the veteran population over some of these things that have happened and the way that they’ve happened,” Ilem warned. "And we do fear damage to the recruitment and retention of hiring the best and brightest to serve veterans.”
The White House said last week that it wants to slash $2 billion worth of
VA contracts, which would affect anything from cancer care to the
ability to assess toxic exposure.
The department quickly paused the cuts following concerns about the impact on
critical health services.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 VA employees who served for
less than 2 years were dismissed last month.
According to U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., that included researchers
working on cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure. VA
Secretary Doug Collins told Fox News Channel this week that the effort was
focused on "finding deficiencies.”
"Anything that we're doing is designed and will not cut
veterans' health or veterans' benefits that they've earned,” he said. In a
Tuesday statement to The Associated Press, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz
said the agency "is putting Veterans at the center of everything the department
does.”
"Every dollar we spend on wasteful contracts,
non-mission-critical or duplicative activities is one less dollar we can spend
on Veterans, and given that choice, we will always side with the Veteran,”
Kasperowicz wrote. Republicans have pointed out that the VA has rehired
employees who were let go during an initial round of layoffs in February, such
as those working for a crisis hotline.
However, during a subsequent round of layoffs, the VA cut
15 other employees who were in jobs supporting the crisis line, including a
trainer for the phone responders, according to congressional staff who are
tracking the cuts.
The VA has long faced calls for reform
The VA has been plagued for years by allegations of poor
medical care and excessively long wait times. Investigators a decade ago uncovered widespread problems in
how VA hospitals were scheduling appointments after allegations that as many as
40 veterans died while awaiting care at the department's Phoenix hospital.
A group of employees accused the department of
retaliating against potential whistleblowers. President Barack Obama, a
Democrat, eventually put into place a
program allowing veterans to go outside the VA system to seek medical care. The
Choice Program was extended by
Trump during his 1st term.
Richard Lamb, who was shot down twice in Vietnam as an
Army helicopter crew chief, said the department should be "cut to the bone.” Lamb,
74, said he broke vertebrae each time his helicopter was shot down. Decades
passed, he said, before a private doctor — not the VA — found compression
fractures and performed surgery.
"I’d be happy to see VA, not torn down, but cleaned up,
cleaned out and recast,” said Lamb, who lives in Waco, Texas. "The VA is
supposed to be a wonderful thing for veterans. It’s not. It sucks.” Daniel
Ragsdale Combs, a Navy veteran with a traumatic brain injury, strongly
disagrees.
Ragsdale Combs, 45, suffered his injury while running to
respond to an order on an aircraft carrier and striking his head above a
hatchway. He receives group therapy for mental illness brought on by the injury
but says he had heard those sessions might be canceled or reduced due to
staffing shortages.
"I’m deeply concerned because the VA has been nothing but
great to me,” said Ragsdale Combs, who lives in Mesa, Arizona. "I’m angry,
upset and frustrated.” Lucy Wong relies on a team of VA doctors in the Phoenix
area to treat her scleroderma, an autoimmune condition that
attacks connective tissue. She said she developed the disease as a medical
technician in the Navy in the 1980s, working with toxic chemicals and enduring
extreme stress.
Driving is difficult. She worries that the VA will cut
Uber rides to her medical appointments, among other things. "I ask if Trump is
cutting anything back here, and the reply is, ‘Not yet,’" Wong said. Josh
Ghering, a former Marine from Parsons, Kansas, who served in Iraq and
Afghanistan, said he had to fly to San Antonio for an appointment with a
neurologist before he was medically retired for back issues, including
herniated discs.
He questioned why he couldn’t get the same appointment
closer to home. "I think they’re headed in the right direction,” Ghering, 42,
said of DOGE. "But they’re going to have to be more thorough with what it is
they’re doing, to make sure they’re not cutting jobs that are needed.”
Will service members be expected to accept VA cuts?
The nation’s service members have never been a political
monolith — and the same holds true for their views on the VA. But the split
between 2 Marines on opposite sides of the country raises a question not just
about DOGE but about America's military: Who is expected to sacrifice?
Watson, the former Marine in Georgia, sustained various
injuries while serving, including a traumatic brain injury when a cable snapped
and a crate fell on him. He said he's willing to accept fewer visits to his VA
doctor and forgo other conveniences as a matter of service to the country. "Many
veterans who voted for Trump understood this was going to be his policy and are
now screaming bloody murder because the axe is going to fall upon the VA,”
Watson said. "And to me, that’s just a little bit self-centered.”
Bafundo, the Marine in Washington State, pushed back against the idea that all Americans are making a sacrifice when, as he sees it, it's really falling back "on the little guy.” America’s billionaires won’t be shouldering any of the burden, he argued, while Musk, who's the world's richest person, and others pay little, if any, taxes. "If we’re going to sacrifice, the wealthy need to sacrifice, too,” he said. "And, frankly, they don’t.”
