Will DOGE cuts at VA erase PACT Act staffing additions? A House VA leader weighs in

I'm here today with Representative Mark Zucano, who's the ranking member of the House Veterans

Affairs Committee. Thank you for sitting down with us. Welcome to my office, Leo. Whenever

someone like you shows up, my desk gets clean. I appreciate that. Listen, I wanted to talk to you

sort of do a heat check on where we are with VA policy and with the Department of Veterans Affairs

right now. We've seen a lot of changes, a lot of reforms, the VA secretary would say

going on at VA. I know you've been very concerned with a lot of things that have happened. So

We've got staff cuts. We've got contract cuts. We've got a bunch of policy changes

Let's start with the federal employee workforce there and the staff cuts that you've heard about and that we've gotten some details of

But I don't think you've even gotten full details of what these cuts are. No, it's very opaque

We do know that 2,400 people that were cut from VA in February, we know about that

We've surveyed people. we've asked people if you've been, if you have been fired from VA, let us know. And, you know

we had, I don't know, 100 or so people, 150 people kind of respond to our survey

including the veteran employee. So over a third of employees at VA, like the entire federal

workforce tend to be veterans. And this particular individual who was from Florida

was one of the people who responded to our survey. He happened to be a

somebody who worked in the Office of Personnel in a very specific role He was part of the personnel team that recruited individuals with tech backgrounds people who manage systems

manage relationships like with Oracle, the electronic health record contractor. It's a very complicated system, and you need people who work for VA to help manage

relationships with these contractors. He was somebody that was fired. He was a veteran. He

was just, I think, 39 days short of making his probationary sort of..

So then he wouldn't have fallen into that cloud. What we know about the first 2400s, these were probationary employees

A probationary employee is someone who's worked less than two years or less than a year

And they have less rights. And Elon Musk and Doge, the entities that were looking to find cuts that could be made quickly

look to the probationary employees as the easiest, lowest hanging fruit to cut from their jobs

And I don't think, I'm clear that they didn't have really a plan or a study of who to cut

They were just looking to cut, period. And they weren't looking at the consequence to the veterans, whether it was their health care

whether it was the claims processing whether it was the people who helped staff the suicide hotline to basically get veterans who are in emergency mental health situations who call up the 988 number that they cut critical staffing for the hotlines

And so it wasn't a well-considered cut. And then I'm horrified to learn that the night before or the night of, actually, the president's address to the Joint Session of Congress that there was a memo leaked that 83,000, the Veterans Affairs Department would be also cut

They wanted to take it back to pre-2019 levels, which is pre-COVID, pre-PACT Act

Why am I saying, why am I emphasizing pre-COVID and pre-PACT Act

Well, the PACT Act, which was signed into law in 2022, made 3.5 million veterans eligible for health care at VA

Those 3.5 million veterans could also be presumably made eligible for disability benefits

They have to go through a vetting process. They have to file claims, have those claims processed

So we're talking about just a massive workload difference from what 2016 was. A massive workload difference in terms of health care providers being hired, in terms of claims processors

That was one of the things that Secretary McDonough was very concerned about when we were passing the PAC Act was making sure he had the capacity to increase capacity and to ramp up hiring And that explains why we had tens of thousands of more employees at VA

after Donald Trump left office than when he started again. So 2019, they're saying that's the beginning of Donald Trump's time

Actually, it's the middle of his term. He was elected in 2016, took office 2017

So two years in, he's saying, well, this is an example of massive bloat at VA

No. VA approved 1.2, I'll say 1.2 million claims, approved claims

I think over 2 million have been processed. since the law was signed in 2022

That's a remarkable level of efficiency and effectiveness of government. And I know for a fact that veterans have had their lives changed by the PAC Act

It meant that many veterans got to 100% disability. They increased their percentage overall

We've gotten veterans off the street because that $4,000 a month tax-free check

means that they have enough money to get a place to live

So on a number of fronts, what I see happening with these very politically driven cuts

first the 2,400 and then the 83,000 they want to do by August

is a betrayal of the PACT Act, is a betrayal of it