Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz Remarks at Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Veterans Affairs Budget Hearing
WASHINGTON — Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-25), Ranking Member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the subcommittee's fiscal year 2026 budget hearing on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA):
Thank you Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you yielding.
Welcome, Secretary Collins – it is nice to see you again. I appreciated our meeting last month and I look forward to working together again going forward.
We are here today to discuss what very little we know about the fiscal year 2026 budget request for the Department of Veterans Affairs. On May 2nd, the Administration sent Congress its “skinny budget” – a 46-page document with highlights and summaries of what we might expect from the full budget request.
But this 46-page “skinny budget” document included just four lines for VA – and this half a page of information is all we have on the 2026 VA budget request. That’s hardly enough information to have a fruitful discussion about the budget request before us today.
But what we do have is four months of very troubling actions at VA, since the start of this Administration. From my view, and from the perspective of many veterans that I regularly talk to, and that my colleagues talk to all across the country, it has been four months of chaos and repeated decisions that jeopardize fair, reliable, quality care to our veterans.
I understand that a Presidential transition is difficult. But this changeover is just not normal. In particular, it has challenged, in the worst way possible, the legitimacy of our institutions, including the role of Congress and the Judiciary.
The actions taken by this Administration have led to fewer services available to our taxpayers, including veterans – services that they paid for and earned. This long trail of bedlam and destruction began with a mass freeze on grant programs across the government, which, disturbingly, did not spare America’s veterans.
The freeze would have eliminated food security support for our most impoverished veterans, cut community-based suicide prevention resources, stopped the construction of state home facilities, and much more. Then, within a matter of days, this freeze was lifted, causing unnecessary delays in payments to grant recipients and temporarily halting vital services for our veterans.
The chaos continued in a first round of firings that indiscriminately targeted probationary employees. Then, a leaked plan showed that up to 80,000 VA employees were also on the chopping block. Because the firings were clearly not well thought out, the courts forced VA to reinstate some employees. So, they were rehired. Yet some were fired again, causing more disarray and unnecessary disruptions to services to our veterans.
It was particularly troubling when it came to the Veterans Crisis Line. When crisis line employees were fired, the Secretary publicly denounced these claims by putting out a YouTube video in which he said, and I quote “we did not, hear me clearly, lay off any veteran crisis line responder.” However, in a letter to Senator Baldwin, the Secretary admitted that he did indeed fire 24 employees at the veteran crisis line. There were several days when calls were not answered because there simply wasn’t anyone to do it. And I heard that directly from a veteran who trains the front-line staff who answers these calls, after she was let go. Because, of course, why would we want to have properly trained staff on the crisis line?
We will never know how many veterans called into that line during those days and didn’t get an answer because of the chaos of those early days of this Administration. I shudder to think of whose calls went unanswered over that time.
The Secretary then forced his employees to quickly return to the office – where many returned to find out there just weren’t enough desks.
He also declared that his employees were in “national security positions” so that he could take away their collective bargaining rights – yet somehow that security status didn’t protect them from being fired.
He claimed as one of his accomplishments that within the first 100 days he opened six new clinics, but they’re all woefully understaffed.
He promised to expand healthcare to our veterans, yet fired staff who ensure that women and minority veterans receive the unique care they deserve.
He gave veterans short notice that he was cancelling the VA Servicing Purchase Program, which helps veterans who face foreclosure keep their homes. Yet, stunningly, there was no real backup plan to address this issue.
He cancelled contracts, claiming they’re duplicative and wasteful, but when we repeatedly asked for details, he didn’t provide them to explain how that was the case. First it was 875 contracts. Then it was 585 contracts, all wrapped in claims of billions in savings. Yet no proof, documentation, or information has been provided to this committee, or to the veterans who are losing these services, that any of those claims were true. This shoot from the hip management approach just doesn’t work for the veterans we serve. They deserve far better than what, so far, looks like a shock doctrine of cruelty, chaos and indiscriminate cuts.
Meanwhile, the real challenges the Department faces remain in place.
Veteran suicides continue. Staff shortages, especially among physicians, remain unaddressed. Homelessness is still too pervasive among our veterans. Veterans still struggle to transition to civilian life. And I know that the Secretary will say today that the cuts he is making to VA’s budget will go directly into care for veterans. He has told me that himself.
But we have yet to see any plan to corroborate that talking point. Where’s the proof? It’s been over 100 days and we’ve yet to see even the concept of a plan to address these real issues facing our veterans. Instead, all we see are political stunts that pander to Elon Musk and the most extreme in the party on the other side of the aisle.
Banning the Pride flag, ending care for transgender veterans, firing probationary employees, many of which are veterans themselves, banning anything that approaches addressing the needs of diverse veteran populations, and canceling contracts – it all does absolutely nothing to address the real challenges facing our veterans.
Today, I look forward to getting specific answers to the questions we’ve been asking for months, and I look forward to the Secretary’s testimony.
I yield back.
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