General
The ‘Chain Saw’ at the Veterans Agency
More from our inbox: Cuts at U.S. Embassies and ConsulatesA memo is calling for the work force at the Department of Veterans Affairs to be reduced by more than 80,000.Credit…Brian Snyder/ReutersTo the Editor: Re “Chaos as Ripple Effects From V.A …
More from our inbox:
- Cuts at U.S. Embassies and Consulates
A memo is calling for the work force at the Department of Veterans Affairs to be reduced by more than 80,000.Credit…Brian Snyder/Reuters
To the Editor:
Re “Chaos as Ripple Effects From V.A. Cuts Spread” (news article, March 11):
Nothing could have been more predictable: Elon Musk and his associates rampage through the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Department of Government Efficiency amateurs fail to distinguish essential services from waste, fraud and abuse. And the result is chaos, harming real people.
This is a case study in poor policy judgment. The V.A. is far from perfect, but many of its programs serve Americans with serious needs, demonstrating that government sometimes works. The states cannot provide veterans with all the services they need, so that must be done by a large, expensive federal agency, one certainly beyond the comprehension of the founders.
The population of the United States in 1789 was nearly four million. The V.A. now provides medical care for more than nine million veterans.
Government might be best when it governs least, but compassion and common sense must prevail.
President Trump does not understand that disruption is a means, never an end. If ruthless cost-cutting imposed with a chain saw on the executive departments will produce a better government, Mr. Trump might deserve to be honored as a great president, an accolade for which he ceaselessly thirsts. But history will be unkind to him if he simply produces a society that is more fragmented and unequal.
Steven S. Berizzi
Norwalk, Conn.
The writer is an emeritus professor of history and political science at Connecticut State Community College, Norwalk.
To the Editor:
Re “Veterans Affairs Department Plans to Eliminate More Than 80,000 Workers” (news article, nytimes.com, March 5):
Our family is full of military service members, dating back to the Revolutionary War (we have the paperwork!). Both my mother and sister have been nurses in Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics. Nothing appalls me quite as much as macho, jingoistic men in government doing everything they can, in the absence of military service or in spite of it, to reduce or cancel services to veterans.
