This week saw the start of an annual lobbying effort on Capitol Hill by veterans advocacy groups to make the case for continued aid for those who have served this nation in uniform.
While policy differences always exist among lawmakers and outside groups, this is normally a bipartisan celebration of veterans who jam the halls of Congress. But this year, that ceremonial feeling took a detour.
A day after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs fired another 1,400 workers, lawmakers in Congress just happened to be meeting with veterans organizations. That led to some pointed questions about the work of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
At a joint House-Senate hearing, leaders of the Disabled American Veterans made clear they weren’t pleased with the VA’s latest pink slips, which come on top of another 1,000 firings earlier in the month.
“That’s not how you treat people,” said the DAV’s Randy Reese, who labeled the firings “unprofessional acts.”
It wasn’t just the DAV. The Veterans of Foreign Wars called for the VA firings to stop, as lawmakers and advocates alike noted that veterans make up about one-quarter of the entire federal workforce.
“It’s veterans who are being indiscriminately harmed,” said VFW commander Al Lipphardt, who will bring that message to another hearing next week.
Democrats also had sharp words for former Georgia U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, who is now the veterans secretary for the Trump Administration.
“Secretary Collins fired 1,400 more employees without notice and cause,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who accused the administration of doing “significant and irreparable harm” to the VA.
What was notable about the hearing was how Democrats zeroed in on the VA job cuts, while Republicans steered clear of that subject.
As for Collins, he has pushed back against any criticism, labeling some of it as “fake news.”
“There is not a front facing person that is being cut,” Collins told the American Legion this week.
In the halls of the Capitol, GOP lawmakers were of two minds about the complaints over cuts at federal agencies. One top House Republican derided “sob stories” about fired federal workers.
But others counseled a more sympathetic message.
“I think it’s compassionate to have a smaller government,” said Georgia U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee, who called for the White House to go slower on federal firings.
Still feeling the impact of his own raucous town hall meeting in Roswell, where voters blasted cuts at the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, McCormick urged his party not to openly celebrate mass firings.
“We’re trying to do what’s right,” McCormick added.
For now, that’s a tough sell for some veterans.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C. since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at http://jamiedupree.substack.com
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