America is living through shutdown Groundhog Day while hardworking veterans get dragged into yet another Washington standoff, and this week Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins made something crystal clear on Wake Up America: veterans remain the VA’s top priority even when politicians play chicken with the budget. Collins didn’t mince words, warning reporters that fearmongering stories about cuts or lost benefits hurt real people and that he will publicly push back when the media spreads false alarms.
The facts are reassuring on paper: thanks to advance appropriations most VA operations keep running during a shutdown, with officials telling the public that roughly 97 percent of services continue uninterrupted. That number matters, but it shouldn’t be a comfort to lawmakers who use veterans as political props while putting essential outreach and transition programs at risk.
What is at real risk, and what Collins warned about, are the services Congress treats as low-priority pocket change — transition assistance, career counseling, outreach to state and tribal partners, and even cemetery maintenance and permanent headstone installations. Those are the quiet, crucial programs that catch vets when they fall, and the loss of them during a shutdown is not an abstract bureaucratic hiccup; it is harm to men and women who served our country.
Collins is not just defending veterans from panic; he’s trying to fix the VA from within by cutting waste and redirecting dollars to care and benefits that matter. The secretary has moved to eliminate non-mission positions and unnecessary contracts so money goes back into medical care and benefits — a gutsy, commonsense move that the old guard and the pundit class hate because it threatens their turf.
So when Collins tells the press to stop scaring veterans, he’s speaking for the millions of Americans who believe the federal government should serve, not soothe the political class or protect insider jobs. He rightly called out the rumor mills and insisted on transparency and facts — exactly what veterans and their families deserve instead of shock-jock headlines and cable hysteria.
The real question now is whether Republican leaders will stop apologizing for doing the right thing and force Congress to pass real appropriations that protect veterans now and reform the system for good. If Washington keeps repeating its same mistakes while American patriots pay the price, voters should remember who stood with veterans and who stood with the failing status quo when the history books are written.
