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Doug Collins didn’t mince words when he told the country “we’re not that VA anymore,” and he’s backing his rhetoric with the kind of decisive action veterans have been promised for years. Confirmed as Secretary of Veterans Affairs in February 2025, Collins has come into the job vowing to reclaim the department from career bureaucracy and put veterans, not belts and rooms in headquarters, first.
The new leadership has already launched a sweeping review of contracts and found jaw-dropping waste that needed to end yesterday, cancelling hundreds of duplicative agreements after auditing only a sliver of the work. That early review turned up roughly $900 million in savings from the first two percent of contracts examined, money Collins says will be redirected to veteran-facing care and benefits rather than bloated overhead.
Yes, tough decisions mean people will lose federal jobs, and the administration has floated workforce reductions on the order of tens of thousands as part of a broader restructuring to strip away layers that slow care. Reports have put proposed cuts in the neighborhood of 70,000 positions as the VA moves to centralize services, eliminate duplicative roles, and stop measuring success by headcount instead of outcomes for veterans.
Unsurprisingly, the shakeup has drawn both guarded praise and sharp criticism on Capitol Hill as officials weigh the RISE reorganization and what it means for access to care. Senators and committee leaders have debated the plan in hearings, with allies applauding accountability and skeptics demanding transparency and proof that reforms won’t hollow out essential services.
Conservatives who actually put veterans first should celebrate this moment: accountability and thrift are not only prudent, they’re moral when the alternative is endless waste that robs veterans of timely care. If redirecting unnecessary spending and forcing better management means fewer bureaucratic sinecures and faster care for ailing vets, that’s a trade-off every patriot should support.
This is about restoring the VA’s mission — serving those who served us — not protecting jobs that exist to perpetuate a system rather than fix it. Secretary Collins is right when he says the federal government exists to serve people, not to be an employment agency, and hardworking Americans ought to stand with any leader who chooses veterans over bureaucrats.
