Washington’s mess started the morning of Oct. 1 when Congress failed to pass the spending bills and the federal government slipped into a shutdown that is already shredding services Americans rely on. What began as a procedural failure has turned into a political weapon, and hardworking citizens are paying the price while career politicians posture in the capital.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins — sworn in earlier this year to put veterans first — has been sounding the alarm about the real-world damage the shutdown is already causing to the people who sacrificed for our country. Collins, a confirmed Cabinet official with military and congressional experience, isn’t trading soundbites; he’s reporting cold, brutal facts from the front lines of the VA.
On Newsmax’s Wake Up America, Collins laid out the arithmetic: roughly 97 percent of VA operations continue thanks to advance appropriations, but that remaining 3 percent at risk is not small — it’s the glue that keeps veterans connected to civilian life. He warned that programs that help service members transition to jobs, career counseling and local outreach are being delayed, and those delays are measured in ruined interviews and lives derailed.
If there’s anything more gutless than playing politics with funding, it’s letting the machinery that honors our dead stop turning. Collins said the shutdown is even preventing ground maintenance and the installation of permanent headstones at national cemeteries — the kind of basic respect every family expects when they bury a loved one who wore the uniform. This is not abstract budgeting; it’s a disgrace, and the people who do this deserve to be called out.
The secretary didn’t mince words: this partisan stunt is “uncalled for and cruel,” and he’s right. Republicans can spar with Democrats over policy, but shutting down parts of the VA because someone thinks it advances a political argument is an unforgivable betrayal of the men and women who defended this nation — and Collins has publicly urged Democrats to stop the theater and open the government now.
Patriots should understand the stakes: every day the shutdown drags on the harder it becomes for veterans to get help, for families to get closure, and for the VA to do its mission. Secretary Collins is trying to redirect resources toward mission-critical care and protect veterans from the fallout, but Congress must do its job and fund the department so bureaucratic fiddling doesn’t cost lives.
This isn’t a time for silence. Americans owe veterans more than press releases and broken promises — we owe them action. Call your senators and representatives, demand they reopen the government, and refuse to let career politicians use our heroes as bargaining chips; the men and women who served won’t forget who stood with them and who stood in the way.
