Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Congressman Tom Barrett addressed recent so-called "DOGE" cuts during a visit to Howell's American Legion Post 141 Monday.

"I'm going to tell you the truth and I'm going to give you the answers that we need to do, and I'm going to take care of our veterans, number one," said Collins. "There's a lot that goes into it. It's a culture that starts at the top and also has to filter down and buy-in."

Secretary Collins said the VA added more than 80,000 employees since 2019, but wait times and backlogs have only increased. He says that means the current system is broken.

"(The backlog) was under 60,000 when Trump first left office, and it's over 225,000 now," he said. "We can't keep doing the same thing, the same way."

President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency caused a fire storm last month when it pink slipped thousands of employees, which Collins described as "interior designers, laborers and publicists."

"The Government Accountability Office has said the VA has been on the high-risk danger list for waste, fraud and abuse and poor quality health care in many of our facilities for ten years. That's just unacceptable," he said.

"Yet, the past three or four weeks, I'm being skewered and pillared that you can't change it, you're going to hurt wait times. But you've done that already."

Photo courtesy of Bobby Brite at American Legion Post 141.