Outrage as MAGA Republican threatens agency long thought untouchable

Democrats hit out at Derrick Van Orden after the Wisconsin Republican representative called for the Trump administration to implement cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“So when are we going to cut the VA?” Van Orden asked at a U.S. House hearing on Thursday.

“Derrick Van Orden isn’t even trying to hide it – he wants to cut the VA,” Katie Smith, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Raw Story on Friday.

“Van Orden’s dangerous agenda is a direct threat to Wisconsin veterans and their access to quality healthcare.”

Representatives for Van Orden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Van Orden is a former U.S. Navy Seal, with 26 years' service including combat tours. On Thursday, he spoke at a hearing held by the U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Addressing Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, a former Republican congressman from Georgia and himself a U.S. Air Force veteran, Van Orden held up a hand-drawn graph he said showed the VA had become top-heavy, with bureaucrats outnumbering doctors.

“This is the problem with VA, okay,” Van Orden said. “This is the increase in bureaucrats. These are the doctors. It's almost a flat line. And then we have an increase with the veterans, because of the PACT Act, right?”

Passed in 2022, the PACT Act expanded access to healthcare for veterans of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Gulf war and the war in Vietnam, particularly those exposed to toxic substances in the course of their service.

“So when we are going to cut the VA?” Van Orden said. “And I hope you do, sir.”

Using his hand-drawn chart, he advocated cutting “bureaucrats,” so “this line with the doctors and stuff that people are actually touching our veterans and providing care can go like this, right, and then we can match the increase with vets.”

Van Orden also said he was “incredibly happy and looking forward to working with [Collins] and your administration.”

Since President Donald Trump's return to power in January, the administration has imposed severe cuts on federal departments.

Particularly as implemented by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by the world's richest man, Elon Musk, such cuts have proved increasingly unpopular.

DOGE is seeking around 15 percent staff cuts at the VA.

This month, a survey by Mission Roll Call, a nonprofit, showed 44 percent of veterans describing themselves as “very concerned” and 20 percent “concerned” over such planned cuts.

NPR reported that department data showed almost 11,300 VA employees had applied for a deferred resignation deal.

“The top positions across all networks that are requesting deferred resignation are nurses (about 1,300), medical support assistants (about 800) and social workers (about 300),” NPR said.

At an earlier hearing, Collins told Senate Democrats: "I will not let you sit here and scare my veterans and scare my employees, because no one has discussed firing doctors or firing nurses. We've always said that we're going to keep frontline healthcare."