Recently, I received a mailing from Congressman Tom Barrett, sent at government expense, which touted his military background and support for veterans. His mailing asserted that as a “Chair of (a) (House Veterans Affairs) Subcommittee” he was “(l)eading the (proposed) ACCESS Act to expand access to care for disabled veterans in our community.”
Much of his recent campaign was based on a platform that he would protect and serve veterans. However, he has failed to deliver. The stand-up guy for veterans is sitting down on the job.
For years, veterans were disrespected by the federal government’s failure to adequately fund, and staff, medical and psychological services. This failure was finally addressed by the bipartisan passage of the PACT Act in 2022, which mandated improved benefit determination and service delivery for over 20 conditions arising from exposure to toxins such as Agent Orange. Added to this are improved psychological services, including those for suicide prevention, to mitigate a suicide rate among veterans more than twice that of the non-veteran population.
To implement the PACT Act, and to properly administer already existing laws, Congress authorized additional funds to the Veterans Administration for increased staffing and other expenses.
Now Trump is asserting that the 20% increase in staffing needed to implement the VA’s increased responsibilities was unnecessary. The VA has announced that it is laying off more than 80,000 (more than 17%) of the VA’s staff, and that it has already laid off several thousand probationary employees.
These layoffs are conducted under a blanket assertion of waste, indolence and incompetence, without any objective evidence that the VA’s newly expanded mission can be accomplished without the staff in question. No effort is being made to determine the importance or productivity of each intended layoff or the effect of a particular layoff on the VA’s expanded mission. Despite these omissions, Tom Barrett has made no objection, aside from sending a wimpy letter to the Administrator of the Department of Veterans Affairs, lamenting past shortcomings, contritely asking that “mission critical personnel” be retained and suggesting that any of the laid off who are veterans should be “treated with dignity and respect.”
What is his definition of “mission critical”? Is his letter suggesting that he knows that any of the positions are unnecessary? Effectively — through his tacit acquiescence — he is supporting a layoff strategy which eliminates staff without first determining whether the positions are “mission critical.”
My own military service was honorable, but nothing compared to that of others. For years, when veterans were thanked for their service, those expressions were hollow, because little effort was made to ensure the effective delivery of promised — and needed — benefits.
In recent years, the VA has improved. Walk through the lobby of the Detroit or Ann Arbor VA hospitals or talk to a veteran who has recently used VA services. While cost savings are desirable, they should not be at the expense of broken promises, but should come through good, old-fashioned management analysis, not mindless layoffs.
Tim Schnelle
Howell
