[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 26, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1845-S1847]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Veterans' Administration
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am here on the floor because we are
in a moment of crisis for our veterans. It is a moment of profound
historic challenge to the Veterans' Administration, and what we need
from Members of this body--and I am encouraged by the response so far--
is a call to action. We need a plan for accountability. That is our
job--to hold responsible officials who have the obligation and
opportunity to serve our veterans at a time when Elon Musk and Donald
Trump are slashing and trashing our Veterans' Administration, with
real-life impacts on the healthcare and disability benefits that are
afforded to our Nation's heroes. It is a disgrace, it is shameful, it
is unacceptable, and we need to muster the courage and fortitude on the
part of this body to call it out and call it off.
That is why I am here, and it is only the beginning of a plan for
accountability that will include others--my colleagues coming to the
floor this week and next--as well as hearings that we will organize,
shadow hearings--not necessarily formal hearings of the committee but
hearings that we will have on aspects of this challenge that call for
us to highlight the need for action.
We are going to come to the floor as well to seek unanimous consent
on measures that will stop the degrading and decimation of the
Veterans' Administration. It is illegal. It is immoral. It is immoral
because we have a solemn responsibility--I don't need to make a long
speech to tell my colleagues about this responsibility. We recognize it
rhetorically all the time. I am here not to make a speech but to have
an impact.
Next week, we are going to be voting on the next VA Deputy Secretary
nominee, Paul Lawrence, and I just want to be really blunt. I voted for
Doug Collins to be VA Secretary. It was a mistake because Secretary
Collins has not been forthcoming with facts. He has not been
transparent. He has not been responsive to us or to veterans and his
employees who are asking questions about what the future of the VA will
be given the firing of 80,000 members of the VA workforce, projected,
in the next few months without a plan, without a strategy, without any
forethought about what its real-life impact will be.
I voted for Doug Collins, and I regret it. I apologize for it. I am
not making the same mistake with Paul Lawrence. There is no reason to
believe he will be any different--not to mention any better--because he
is the Deputy. I have respect for their service in the military, as I
do for anyone who has worn the uniform, but I cannot--I cannot--vote
for Paul Lawrence. I hope my colleagues will be as vigilant as I am
seeking to be in voting against him. I will oppose his nomination.
Since taking office, this administration has shortsightedly
shortchanged and systematically betrayed our veterans with policies
that are against their interests. The goal here: save money so that tax
cuts can be financed--tax cuts for the billionaires and millionaires
that populate this administration and drive its policy.
They fired already 2,400 VA employees, many of them high performers.
They have been promoted to provisional positions because they have been
high performers. They are in those provisional positions for a time
when they would become permanently in those positions, but because they
are provisional, they have been fired; likewise, the younger members of
the workforce who have just been recruited for positions that are open
and where their talent is vitally needed. They are the future of our
VA, younger VA employees who want to make a career of it, want to serve
fellow veterans.
[[Page S1846]]
Thirty percent of all the fired workers are veterans because 30
percent of the workforce there is veterans. In fact, the newer
employees may be veterans in a higher percentage. We are terminating
the future workforce of the VA--again, simply to save money to finance
tax cuts for Elon Musk and his fellow billionaires and the
ultrawealthy.
Now, the workers who have been fired are in positions of healthcare
and disability benefits processing. So what is at risk here is
literally the everyday medical needs of our veterans. They are
physicians, thousands of them; nurses; schedulers; counselors; the
janitors who make sure the facilities are clean. The surgeon who goes
into the operating suite can't do it alone; he needs his team. We are
firing his team as well as the medical care providers.
On the disability benefits side, the increase in workforce that took
place in recent years is to deal with the PACT Act increase in
applicants for disability benefits, our veterans who have been exposed
to burn pits and toxic chemicals. They are in need of screening,
advising, consulting, as well as care and treatment.
We had bipartisan support for the PACT Act. The law is dead letter if
it is implemented haphazardly, and we are betraying the goals and the
trust we sought so proudly to espouse when we passed that PACT Act that
recognized the sacrifice veterans are making--and their families--when
they have cancer or hypertension or diabetes or any of the diseases
that can result from exposure to those toxic chemicals.
VA Secretary Doug Collins has claimed falsely that there will be no
impact to veterans' healthcare and benefits as a result of the
administration's malign directive.
At the end of the Biden administration, the VA was delivering more
benefits and more healthcare to more veterans than ever before as a
result of the success of the PACT Act, for toxic-exposed veterans, and
trust in the VA was at an alltime high.
We are risking the healthcare and benefits to veterans not just now
but in the future because the credibility of the VA will be decimated,
along with its workforce.
The cancelation of contracts eliminates another source of resources
for our veterans. VA employees are the ones delivering healthcare. VA
employees are the ones processing the PACT Act benefits.
I am disappointed and dismayed that so many of my Republican
colleagues are seeking to minimize or diminish the human impacts of
these cuts, firings, freezes--the cuts in funding, the freezes in
hiring, the firings of employees who are there now--even at a time when
there are 40,000 open positions. The VA is recruiting to fill them--
3,000 surgeons, 6,000 nurses, thousands of counselors and schedulers--
open positions. At the same time that it is trying to recruit people to
fill those positions, it is firing the workers who have similar or the
same positions right now. It makes no sense.
But the human impacts are what trouble me the most. To my colleagues
or anyone who claims there are no impacts, go host a veteran townhall
in your State. Talk to the local VFW or American Legion or any of the
other veterans service organizations. Go visit a local VA medical
center or clinic or talk to employees who work there. When you meet
face to face with your constituents, the immediate impacts of this
administration's malign directives, whether it is out of malevolence or
simply malign neglect, will become apparent, and either way, it is
unacceptable.
I invite Secretary Collins to actually come to a townhall--make it
Connecticut; make it anywhere--a townhall where you will meet face to
face with a group of veterans who will tell you what these cuts,
freezes, and firings mean in real life to the services that are
supposed to be provided to them and will be denied because of these
directives.
Let's be clear: The one behind this is Elon Musk. The one who is
directing these cuts, freezes, and firings is an unappointed, unelected
billionaire who has never contemplated wearing the uniform of this
country, not to mention helping or serving our veterans in any way.
Elon Musk, you come to a townhall with veterans. You face them and
tell them that they can't have the medical care they need and deserve
to treat cancer or hypertension or any of the diseases or illnesses
that result from exposure to toxic chemicals or burn pits.
I attended a veterans event last week. I talk to veterans all the
time when I am back in Connecticut. I know firsthand what these cuts,
freezes, and firings mean to them. The impacts caused by Musk and
Trump--heartbreaking, heartless cuts and other damaging directives--are
being felt in every corner of my State of Connecticut and every part of
our country.
I just want to read a few sentences from Sioux Falls Live, a
newspaper in South Dakota:
``Staffing cuts in the federal Department of Veterans
Affairs are disproportionately affecting the veterans that
the department preferentially hires,'' said members of a
South Dakota veterans' advocacy group.
They worry the Trump administration's goal of cutting
80,000 VA employees will put more veterans out of work
without a vetting process, and erode the quality of services
provided.
Eugene Murphy, of Sioux Falls, is a past national commander
of Disabled American Veterans and a Vietnam War vet who was
paralyzed by gunshot wounds.
``How are you going to treat my brothers and sisters like
that?'' He said. ``This is not right.''
I hope those words will echo in this Chamber. It is not right. It is
not right. These veterans in South Dakota have a right to be angry, not
to mention concerned and worried not just for themselves but veterans
across the country.
We heard that a VA hospital in South Dakota is at risk of losing
nearly 20 percent of its staff as a direct result of Trump and Musk's
illegal and indiscriminate reduction-in-force plans.
And yet Secretary Collins continues to dutifully carry out
the Musk plan with no buy-in, no consultation, no townhall
with that.
Now let me read you an excerpt from an article in the Spokesman-
Review that contained interviews with some of the VA employees that
Collins illegally fired. VA employees like Ricky Noschese who worked at
Lovell Federal Healthcare Center.
Here is what Ricky Noschese--I apologize for the mispronunciation--
Ricky Noschese says about that Federal health center where he
supervises a team of technicians in charge of keeping equipment running
at the hospital--another corrective. He supervised them.
Lovell serves 90,000 patients a year, including veterans, Active-Duty
servicemembers, and their dependents:
In less than a year on the job, Ricky had identified more
than $10 million in cost savings and had a long list of ideas
to improve operations and complete long-delayed projects.
With the support of his boss, Noschese wrote a detailed four-page
document to justify his employment. He described how he had helped save
taxpayers more than $10 million by using nearly two decades of
experience as an HVAC technician to identify efficiencies and find
cost-effective ways to extend the life of air-handling units.
He was head of a 12-person team responsible for ensuring clean water,
fire safety, and other essentials required to maintain the hospital's
accreditation.
Noschese and his bosses hoped he would be exempt from the mass
firing, but after they sent the justification memo up the chain, they
got a curt, simple, stark response: The document was too long. He
should sum up his position in no more than three sentences.
Noschese was told a member of hospital leadership did that, but it
made no difference. He had to turn in his badge and go home.
Now I tell you this story in some detail because it shows that
efforts to eliminate waste when they are draconian and cruel and
indiscriminate actually create more costs. Laying waste to the VA with
across-the-board cuts without careful, selective consideration actually
raises the expense, as it will in Noschese's job where there is nobody
to do that excellent work based on his experience and expertise; and,
ultimately, the costs will be higher as a result. But Elon Musk,
apparently, doesn't care, nor does Doug Collins.
Take disabled veteran Megan-Richelle Cole. She worked at Lovell,
managing the supply of medications and ensured patients so that they
would receive only the best drugs, not
[[Page S1847]]
expired or recalled drugs. When she was fired--simply on the basis of
being a probationary employee--she was in the final stages of buying a
house. Disabled veteran, doing work responsibly and well, about to buy
a house--suddenly, she has no income.
Let me read a few more lines about her:
To make matters worse, the VA didn't provide her with a
form required to file for unemployment benefits, and she had
to withdraw from that home purchase. ``Everything was going
smoothly, like it was supposed to,'' she said, until the
sudden termination left her feeling humiliated and lost.
``Nobody knew anything. It was just heartbreaking.'' Cole's
supervisors, again, tried to help her preserve her job to no
avail.
Let's be clear: This administration's actions have a real lasting
impact on veterans' care and benefits despite Secretary Collins'
blatantly disingenuous claims that there have been none, there will be
none. Elon Musk should know what those consequences will be, and
Secretary Collins should be transparent with the administration and
with us.
These heartbreaking and heartless cuts will destroy lives and
livelihoods. VA Secretary Collins, Musk, and Trump are prioritizing a
``fire first, analyze later'' mindset and strategy at the expense of
the very people they are supposed to serve--people who served and
sacrificed for us: America's veterans. It is unconscionable. It is
unwise and ineffective. It is immoral.
I will say this in closing: Nobody is claiming--certainly, I am not--
that there isn't waste that we can eliminate, that fraud or abuse
shouldn't be pursued. In fact, if this administration were serious
about fraud and abuse and waste, they wouldn't have fired Mike Missal,
the inspector general, whose service under both Democratic and
Republican administrations has been exemplary.
He has been saluted and praised in Republican administrations, as
well as Democratic, by my colleagues on the Republican side, as well as
ours, but he was fired inexplicably, inconsistently with the goal of
eliminating waste and fraud. It belies their claims and pretensions to
want to eliminate abuse and fraud and waste to fire the watchdog who
would call it out, investigate it, and refer it for prosecution as he
has done saving tens of millions of dollars for taxpayers and benefits
for veterans.
He has served both Republican and Democratic administrations, and
there is nothing partisan about anything that I have said here, about
the impact on veterans, the cruelty, and deeply heartbreaking
consequences of these actions.
My Republican colleagues should join us when we begin next week with
floor speeches and unanimous consent requests and the hearings--shadow
hearings--that we will conduct and other actions that we will undertake
in this call for accountability--a call for action.
Nothing partisan should deter them from joining us. This
responsibility is one that we share in this body to highlight and call
out and call off the Musk-Trump disastrous and disgraceful cuts in
benefits and healthcare for our veterans.
We are hearing from veterans, and again, I encourage my colleagues to
hear more directly, immediately, personally from them. I invite
Secretary Collins to join me in a townhall as soon as possible.
I invite him again, as I did in a letter recently, to appear on April
2 before a shadow hearing we will conduct in this Capitol. He can
explain himself. He can tell me why I am wrong but, most important, he
can answer to our Nation's veterans who deserve and need better from
this administration.
America's veterans deserve nothing less than for every single Member
in this body to call into question these damaging policies. They
deserve nothing less than the gold standard in healthcare, as well as
full and complete benefits of the PACT Act and in every other respect,
the respect and responsibility that we have. To disrespect them is un-
American.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BRITT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.