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The administration is vindictively hacking away at veterans’ benefits.
In America, veterans are reliably conservative. In 2024, pre-election polls showed that about 61 percent of them supported Donald Trump, while just 37 percent supported Kamala Harris. In the past, this made some sense, as Republicans traditionally have showered money and benefits on the military, despite the fact that the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department constitute the only fully socialized, cradle-to-grave welfare system in this country. The bargain has gone like this: Give the government several years of your life, potentially putting life and limb at risk, and you will get access to a European-style welfare state.
But this time is different. Trump, together with Elon Musk and his DOGE goons, are carrying out sweeping attacks on veterans and soldiers alike, from active-duty troops, to veterans who receive a wide range of benefits, to the hundreds of thousands of veterans in the federal workforce.
Probably the most directly impactful cuts are the ones to the VA, particularly research and treatment. As Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early have covered here at the Prospect, the VA has a scientific arm that has developed dozens of medical innovations useful not just to veterans, but all people. Agency scientists were central to the development of advanced prosthetic limbs, the cardiac pacemaker, the liver transplant, the CAT scan, and dozens of important medications.
Great chunks of that scientific apparatus are being ripped out, more or less at random. Hundreds of researchers have been fired and hundreds of studies, including clinical trials, have been halted. “Over 10,000 veterans may have their medical care affected immediately because of this assault on VA research, the National Association of Veterans’ Research and Education Foundations tells the Prospect,” Gordon and Early write. A lot of veterans, and likely ordinary citizens too, are going to die because of this.
Thousands of VA staff have already been canned, and more than 80,000 layoffs are planned for coming months. As Gordon and Early detail in another piece, Trump’s VA chief Doug Collins is cutting contracts not with abusive monopolists who rip off the agency, but others providing basic services. The quality and accessibility of veterans’ care will suffer. Even the VA’s suicide hotline is not immune, as perhaps two-thirds of the people staffing it will not be able to comply with Trump’s order ending work-from-home policies.
Trump and Musk are also coming for veterans’ homes. As NPR explains, back in 2023 the VA abruptly canceled a pandemic relief program that allowed veterans to stop making payments for up to six months, which is forcing borrowers to make up the missed payments all at once. Up to 40,000 veterans faced foreclosure. In response, the agency set up a mortgage assistance program, called VASP, that’s similar to the New Deal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which bought up distressed mortgages and negotiated new terms within borrowers’ ability to pay. More than 17,000 veterans are now enrolled in this program.
But now Trump is axing that program before even half the affected population is enrolled, and possibly ending it for the veterans already enrolled in it. In this, he has the support of House Republicans. “The Trump administration rightfully put an end to VA’s VASP program,” said a joint statement from Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and Mike Bost (R-IL), the chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
https://prospect.org/health/2025-04-07-mad-king-trumps-war-on-the-troops/
In America, veterans are reliably conservative. In 2024, pre-election polls showed that about 61 percent of them supported Donald Trump, while just 37 percent supported Kamala Harris. In the past, this made some sense, as Republicans traditionally have showered money and benefits on the military, despite the fact that the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department constitute the only fully socialized, cradle-to-grave welfare system in this country. The bargain has gone like this: Give the government several years of your life, potentially putting life and limb at risk, and you will get access to a European-style welfare state.
But this time is different. Trump, together with Elon Musk and his DOGE goons, are carrying out sweeping attacks on veterans and soldiers alike, from active-duty troops, to veterans who receive a wide range of benefits, to the hundreds of thousands of veterans in the federal workforce.
Probably the most directly impactful cuts are the ones to the VA, particularly research and treatment. As Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early have covered here at the Prospect, the VA has a scientific arm that has developed dozens of medical innovations useful not just to veterans, but all people. Agency scientists were central to the development of advanced prosthetic limbs, the cardiac pacemaker, the liver transplant, the CAT scan, and dozens of important medications.
Great chunks of that scientific apparatus are being ripped out, more or less at random. Hundreds of researchers have been fired and hundreds of studies, including clinical trials, have been halted. “Over 10,000 veterans may have their medical care affected immediately because of this assault on VA research, the National Association of Veterans’ Research and Education Foundations tells the Prospect,” Gordon and Early write. A lot of veterans, and likely ordinary citizens too, are going to die because of this.
Thousands of VA staff have already been canned, and more than 80,000 layoffs are planned for coming months. As Gordon and Early detail in another piece, Trump’s VA chief Doug Collins is cutting contracts not with abusive monopolists who rip off the agency, but others providing basic services. The quality and accessibility of veterans’ care will suffer. Even the VA’s suicide hotline is not immune, as perhaps two-thirds of the people staffing it will not be able to comply with Trump’s order ending work-from-home policies.
Trump and Musk are also coming for veterans’ homes. As NPR explains, back in 2023 the VA abruptly canceled a pandemic relief program that allowed veterans to stop making payments for up to six months, which is forcing borrowers to make up the missed payments all at once. Up to 40,000 veterans faced foreclosure. In response, the agency set up a mortgage assistance program, called VASP, that’s similar to the New Deal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which bought up distressed mortgages and negotiated new terms within borrowers’ ability to pay. More than 17,000 veterans are now enrolled in this program.
But now Trump is axing that program before even half the affected population is enrolled, and possibly ending it for the veterans already enrolled in it. In this, he has the support of House Republicans. “The Trump administration rightfully put an end to VA’s VASP program,” said a joint statement from Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and Mike Bost (R-IL), the chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
https://prospect.org/health/2025-04-07-mad-king-trumps-war-on-the-troops/
