By STEPHEN GROVES
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning an “aggressive” reorganization that includes cutting 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency that provides health care for retired military members, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top level officials at the agency that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, as well as to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.
The memo instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.” It also calls for agency officials to work with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency to “move out aggressively, while taking a pragmatic and disciplined approach” to the Trump administration’s goals.
Veterans have already been speaking out against the cuts at the VA, which so far had included a few thousand employees and hundreds of contracts. More than 25% of the VA’s workforce are veterans themselves.
In Congress, Democrats have decried the cuts at the VA and other agencies, while Republicans have so far watched with caution the Trump administration’s changes.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees veteran’s affairs, said in a statement that the Trump administration “has launched an all-out assault” against progress the VA has made in expanding its services as the number of covered veterans grows and includes those impacted by toxic burn pits.
“Their plan prioritizes private sector profits over veterans’ care, balancing the budget on the backs of those who served. It’s a shameful betrayal, and veterans will pay the price for their unforgivable corruption, incompetence, and immorality,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
Government Executive first reported on the internal memo.
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