AUGUSTA, Ga. – The Trump administration is planning to cut about 72,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

With a two-campus hospital in Augusta and facilities in outlying counties, the agency is a major employer in the CSRA – although it’s unclear right now how the cuts will affect local employees or the countless veterans who have retired here.

The agency employs about 2,700 people across the VA Augusta health system, which includes the two medical centers in Augusta and clinics in Athens, Aiken and Statesboro.

VA Secretary Doug Collins, a former Georgia congressman, said the agency is aiming to cut the jobs as part of its “department-wide review” that is being carried out in response to President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and Workforce Optimization initiative.

“This will be a thorough and thoughtful review based on input from career VA employees, senior executives, as well as the top VA leaders,” Collins said. “Our goal is to reduce VA employment levels to 2019-end strength numbers – roughly 398,000 employees from our current level of approximately 470,000 employees. Now that’s an 15% decrease. We’re going to accomplish this without making cuts to health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries.

Collins also said that the agency’s biggest problem is being inefficient and said the administration “is finally going to give the veterans what they want.”

“Now we regret anyone who loses their job. And it’s extraordinarily difficult for me, especially as a VA leader and your secretary, to make these types of decisions. But the federal government does not exist to employ people. It exists to serve people,” he said.

Democrats on Capitol Hill spoke out against the newly announced plans and prior Department of Government Efficiency cuts on Wednesday, saying many veterans are being hurt by them.

“The GOP is throwing our veterans under the bus, raising their prices, cutting their health care, destroying their livelihoods,” said Rep. Katherine Clark, (D-MA).

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“1 in 4 federal employees are veterans. So when the Trump administration indiscriminately, and in many cases brazenly, illegally fires federal employees, that has a disproportionate effect on our nation’s veterans,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA).

Veterans themselves have also been expressing concerns about DOGE cuts prior to Wednesday’s announcement like former VA employee Michael Slater, who lost his job last month.

“It’s so important that we maintain the level of service that we have. We’re already understaffed across the entire VA,” he said.

Slater spoke to members of the press in Washington just before President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday. He was invited as a guest of Congressman Richard Neal (D-MA).

“So these cuts are only going to hinder the care that veterans can receive and put more and more of them at risk on a daily basis,” said Slater.

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