Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins defended his leadership of the department amid criticism Trump administration cuts will affect services.
“I have one purpose and one purpose alone, and that is to make the VA exactly what it’s supposed to be,” Collins told the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Thursday. “And that is to take care of our veterans and do so in the most efficient and effective way.”
Collins, a former ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, is seeking to reduce the VA’s workforce of 400,000 employees by 83,000 people, indicating those in payroll and human resources positions will be the ones most likely affected as opposed to doctors, nurses, and others in 300,000 off-limits roles.
“We began to believe that the only issues in VA could be solved by simply giving more money and giving more employees,” the secretary said. “In fact, we’ve actually increased 52,000 full-time employees from ’21 to ’24 and things still have not gotten better. In fact, to be honest, according to the metrics of the VA that was established before I ever got there, they’ve gotten worse.”
The onetime Republican congressman and Air Force veteran from Georgia added, “You have to simply ask yourself the question, is what we’re doing and how we’re doing it the same way, the same way, making a difference? And the answer is no. When your wait times go up, your backlogs go up, you’re not fulfilling the mission to the veteran.”
Aside from reducing the VA’s workforce, Collins underscored that his other priorities included cutting red tape so the department does not “continually get in our own way.” To that end, he emphasized that the VA has already reduced its backlog of benefit claims and assessments by 21% for the country’s 9 million veterans.
Under questioning from Democrats, Collins also defended his dismantling of the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase Program, his progress in implementing former Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act, the VA’s rescission of diversity schemes, and the department’s incorporation of technology.
Collins announced last month that he was repealing the VASP program, a mortgage rescue initiative introduced last year that has helped more than 17,000 veterans not foreclose on their homes, but has cost the federal government $5.5 billion worth of loans. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) is the co-sponsor of the replacement VA Home Loan Program Reform Act.
In his opening statement, ranking member Mark Takano (D-CA) contended Collins and the Trump administration wanted “to traumatize public servants into submission or into quitting their jobs so the work can be farmed out to Trump’s billionaire friends.”
“I would say fear as a tactic for leadership is not effective,” Takano said. “You are doing all these things during a time of financial turmoil for families in America, while we deal with the impacts of Trump’s chaotic tariffs and economic policies. We’re all trying to make sense of it all so that we can better serve veterans.”
During a later exchange, Collins and Takano grew angry over leaked predecisional documents that the Democrat claimed demonstrated the possibility of VA healthcare providers being fired, with Collins declining to give the Californian a commitment that he will delay acting on any decisions for 30 days after disclosing his workforce reduction plan.
Collins was additionally pressed on his strategy to reduce suicide rates among veterans, including through the use of psychedelic-assisted therapy to counter post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol abuse. Almost a dozen studies into psychedelic-assisted therapy are ongoing.
“Since 2008, our veteran suicide number has not changed,” he said. “But yet, over the past few years, we have added $588 million every year for the last few years to suicide prevention. It’s not working. So I want to use grants and programs like [the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program] to reach out beyond the scope of where we’re currently reaching to say, how can we actually touch the veteran that’s not being touched right now by these programs?”
Of the VA stopping its provision of gender transition healthcare, Collins went on: “If they were currently in hormonal treatment, or they’re coming off of it from [the Defense Department], they’re going to continue that because there is some health issues associated with that. … We’re not starting, we’re also not getting into sex change operations. Those are just not something that the VA is going to be doing.”
Collins simultaneously took the opportunity to put pressure on the Senate to confirm his chief financial officer, general counsel, and undersecretary for memorial affairs, Sam Brown, all veterans. Brown, who received burns to 30% of his body when an improvised explosive device exploded near him when he was serving in Afghanistan in 2008, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in Nevada last year.
“I can’t get the Senate to approve them,” he said. “So don’t tell me they want to help veterans when they’ve got three of them sitting right there, one who was grievously injured in wartime, that they refuse to approve. That’s what I’m dealing with right now.”
Trump has requested $187.2 billion for the VA in his budget for next year, which includes $134.6 billion in discretionary funding and another $50 billion from the toxic exposure fund, an increase of more than 17% compared to last year.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) told Collins he was hoping he “can avoid the total chaos and financial management that we witnessed during the end of the Biden administration.”
“Despite receiving the largest VA budget in history, the department reported an alleged shortfall late last year, not because of underfunding, but because of poor internal accounting and a lack of fiscal discipline, and that’s putting it nicely,” the chairman said. “Biden VA officials misused the hiring and pay authority Congress provided. Then when the numbers didn’t add up, they turned around and tried to shift the blame. They needlessly alarmed veterans and accused Republicans of putting their care at risk, all while refusing to take responsibility for the decisions that got them there in the first place.”