Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins announced that his department saved $900 million after viewing a mere 2% of government contracts. There are unfounded fears that the Trump Administration will cut veteran benefits or health care. Instead, these measures will provide the government with more aid for our veterans by eliminating government waste.
The VA outsources most of its work to contractors, many of whom have been charging top dollar for their services. There are currently over 90,000 contracts in place through the VA worth over $67 billion. Instead of managing or reviewing the current contracts, the past administration continued to issue more. Terminating 585 contracts, a mere 1% of total active contracts, eliminated $900 million in waste that will be directed to American veterans. Secretary Collins noted that the canceled contracts were either duplicative agreements or non-mission-critical.
The department must still hire for over 300,000 mission-critical roles, but these positions will fulfill a direct purpose. “The days of kicking the can down the road and measuring VA’s progress by how much money it spends and how many people it employs, rather than how many veterans it helps, are over,” Collins said. The department will transition to a new electronic contract management system, and contracts will be evaluated more closely through a newly formed contract review board. Simply put, the VA has been overspending because it had no way to manage former contracts.
Veterans Affairs requires a massive amount of funding. The department set a budget of $369.3 billion for FY2025, a nearly a 10% increase from the year prior. The agency requires $134 billion in discretionary funding for health care, benefits, and cemeteries. They wish to inject another $253.3 billion into mandatory benefit program funding, and put another $191.1 billion toward compensation and pensions for 6.9 million veterans. The Cost of War Toxic Exposers Fund (TEF) alone requires $24.5 billion. Another $192.1 billion will go toward education and job training for 1.1 million veterans and qualified dependents.
It is paramount for America to take care of its veterans. Do not believe the lies told on legacy media programs that Trump wishes to defund the VA and take away benefits from our veterans. Auditing measures will have the opposite effect and enable the government to fund essential programs for our veterans rather than paying contractors for nonessential or unnecessary work.
