The Department of Veterans Affairs is about to fire 83,000 people, and if you think that’s just a “workforce optimization plan,” you probably also believe the VA mission statement actually means something.

Let’s cut through the bureaucratic spin and get to the ugly truth:
This isn’t about efficiency. This is about politics.
And veterans — the people the VA exists to serve — are going to pay the price. Again.

From Staffing Up to Slashing Down — The VA’s Yo-Yo Management

The same VA that spent the last few years hiring like crazy, adding 61,000 people in 2023 alone, is now about to gut its own workforce back to pre-pandemic levels — all because some bean counters want to hit an arbitrary 2019 headcount. No analysis of what services are actually needed, no consideration of the flood of new veterans who qualify for care under the PACT Act, just a target number on a PowerPoint slide.

Veterans waited years for expanded toxic exposure benefits — now, they’re going to wait years more because the people processing their claims will be handed pink slips. It’s not “workforce optimization.” It’s sabotage with a buzzword.

More Veterans, Less Help — What Could Go Wrong?

The math doesn’t lie. There are millions more veterans eligible for care today than there were in 2019, thanks to new legislation and a hard-fought expansion of benefits. The VA’s own data proves it — appointment backlogs, claim processing delays, and overloaded case managers are already chronic problems.

So how do you solve that?
Apparently, by firing the people who actually do the work.

This is like trying to make a warship faster by throwing the crew overboard. It looks great on a spreadsheet until you realize nobody’s left to keep the engines running.

One in Four VA Employees Are Veterans — Guess Who’s on the Chopping Block?

Here’s the part they don’t like to talk about.
More than one in four VA employees is a veteran — meaning this layoff plan doesn’t just hurt veterans by cutting their care, it hurts veterans who work for the VA and rely on those paychecks to feed their families.

The same men and women who swapped their uniforms for VA ID badges are now collateral damage in a political shell game. They’ll be thanked for their service, right before they’re shown the door.

If you think it’s hard getting a competent claims officer now, wait until they gut the system and the only people left are the ones who couldn’t find the exit fast enough.

The Politics of Gutting the VA — And Who Really Pays

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. The Trump administration issued orders to shrink and “reform” federal workforces, and the VA — despite being one of the only agencies that avoided those cuts at the time — is now the sacrificial lamb.

The politicians behind this mess will tell you it’s about efficiency. It’s not. It’s about proving to voters that they “cut government,” even if the cuts come directly from the people keeping veterans alive.

The same crowd that loves to wave the flag and talk about supporting our troops has no problem slashing the people responsible for getting those troops their care once they come home.

Veterans Know the Difference Between Efficiency and Betrayal

Any veteran who’s ever dealt with the VA knows the real problem isn’t the rank-and-file employees. It’s the bloated, incompetent management layers and the political appointees who parachute in with zero experience and a mandate to “fix” things by making them worse.

The folks getting cut aren’t the ones sitting in DC offices writing useless memos about synergy and transformation. It’s going to be the nurses, case workers, benefits officers, and schedulers who actually interact with veterans, fight to get them appointments, and make sure their benefits check lands before the rent’s due.

Cutting those people isn’t efficiency — it’s betrayal with a side of patriotic lip service.

Veterans Deserve Better Than PowerPoint Medicine

Here’s the truth:

  • If you served your country, you deserve better than a system gutted to hit an arbitrary headcount.
  • If you came home sick from burn pits, Agent Orange, or some chemical cocktail the Pentagon swore was safe, you deserve a VA staffed with enough people to process your claim before you’re in hospice care.
  • And if you went from combat boots to a VA job, you deserve better than being tossed aside so some politician can brag about “cutting waste.”

The VA isn’t perfect. Nobody who’s ever been through the front door would say otherwise.
But the problems at the top don’t get fixed by cutting the people at the bottom who actually give a damn.

Warfighters Deserve Wartime Support — Even After the War Ends

The men and women the VA serves already fought their war. They shouldn’t have to fight their own government for care. They shouldn’t have to watch fellow veterans lose their jobs because the VA’s leadership wants to impress some budget hawk who never served a day in his life.

Veterans didn’t fail the VA.
The VA failed veterans — and now it’s doubling down by gutting its own workforce and calling it progress.

There’s a name for that:
Dereliction of duty.