Local veterans, supporters demonstrate against DOGE cuts
RAVENNA, Ohio (WJW) – Veterans and their supporters representing thousands of employees of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cleveland and a Veteran Affairs clinic gathered outside of the clinic on Thursday to rally against proposed cuts.
Veteran Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has already announced as many as 80,000 VA jobs could be cut.
Cooperating with Elon Musk and DOGE, more than 2,000 jobs have already been eliminated, many of them probationary positions. More than $900 million in VA contracts are said to have been canceled.
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But those demonstrating on Thursday believe the VA is already understaffed and everyone working there is important.
'We have been understaffed since I have been at the VA in 1999. There's always areas that have been understaffed. It's hard to get people with certain specialties to come to the VA because again you are not making the money you would make in the private sector, so it takes dedication to work some of these jobs,' said Alicia Jennings, who works as a police dispatcher for the VA.
'When he decides that it's time to fire the 80,000 more employees that he says he is going to do to bring it back to 2019 staffing levels, back in 2019 wait times were the longest that veterans have ever seen,' said military veteran Tim Hauser
Hauser said he does not trust the commitments to veterans that have been publicly made by VA Secretary Doug Collins.
'It's extraordinarily difficult for me, especially as a VA leader and your secretary, to make these types of decisions, but the federal government doesn't exist to employ people, it exists to serve people,' Collins previously said in a public statement. 'We are not cutting healthcare and we are not cutting benefits.'
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But veterans gathered on Thursday worry that any cuts threaten to make the care they receive less efficient.
'All you have to do is try to see what it's like to get an appointment. It's better than it was several years ago, but you still have to wait,' said Vietnam veteran Brian McLafferty.
Many of the veterans who were gathered in Ravenna on Thursday support making government more efficient but believe there is a more focused way of going about it.
'I mean, if you are going to look for efficiency, there's a lot of ways to do it. Just going and hacking heads and then trying to figure out what the effect is going to be later on is not the way to do it,' said McLafferty.
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