The memo instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut a staggering 80,000 jobs from the agency, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top level officials at the agency that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000, which would require firing tens of thousands of employees.
In Congress, Democrats have decried the cuts at the VA and other agencies, while Republicans have so far watched with caution the Trump administration’s changes.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees veteran’s affairs, said in a statement that the Trump administration “has launched an all-out assault” against progress the VA has made in expanding its services as the number of covered veterans grows and includes those impacted by toxic burn pits.
“Their plan prioritizes private sector profits over veterans’ care, balancing the budget on the backs of those who served. It’s a shameful betrayal, and veterans will pay the price for their unforgivable corruption, incompetence, and immorality,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
Earlier this week Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba told reporters that the Trump administration feels that veterans who have been fired from government “perhaps” aren’t “fit to have a job at this moment”.
“Are you starting to think about maybe some of those veterans who worked for the federal government and maybe what the administration can do to at least help salvage their lives,” Habba was asked on camera.
“Well as you know we care about veterans tremendously I mean that’s something the president has always cared about anybody in blue anybody that serves this country but at the same time we have taxpayer dollars we have a fiscal responsibility to pay people that actually work,” Habba explained.
“That doesn’t mean that we forget our veterans by any means we are going to care for them in the right way but perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment or they’re not willing to come to work… I wouldn’t take money from you and pay somebody and say sorry they’re not gonna come to work it’s just not acceptable,” she added.
