Burn Pits 360 Condemns Proposed VA Cuts: A Direct Threat to Veterans, Their Families, and the Implementation of the PACT Act
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 5th, 2025
Burn Pits 360 Condemns Proposed VA Cuts: A Direct Threat to Veterans, Their Families, and the Implementation of the PACT Act
The proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are not just numbers on a budget sheet—they are a direct assault on the lives of our nation’s warfighters, their families, and the hard-fought progress made with the Honoring Our PACT Act. Slashing 80,000 jobs and reducing critical services will cripple the VA’s ability to properly implement the PACT Act, leaving countless veterans without the care and benefits they were promised.
Many of these veterans are already in transition, navigating the difficult shift from military to civilian life. Their jobs, their healthcare, and their stability are their saving grace. Taking that away is not just irresponsible—it’s a betrayal. It is contradictory for this administration to claim they support veterans while simultaneously enacting policies that will leave them struggling, abandoned, and at greater risk of suicide.
The PACT Act was signed into law to ensure that veterans suffering from toxic exposures receive the care and benefits they earned. But without the workforce to process claims, provide medical evaluations, and deliver essential healthcare, the promise of the PACT Act will become an empty one. These cuts will create longer backlogs, delayed medical care, and increased suffering for veterans already facing severe health conditions.
The VA and the Department of Government Efficiency must move aggressively to improve workforce efficiency without doing so on the backs of those who have sacrificed everything. There are ways to streamline operations, eliminate waste, and improve effectiveness without gutting the very system meant to care for those who have borne the weight of war.
We call on Congress and the administration to immediately halt these reckless cuts and engage with the veteran community to find real solutions.
To President Trump and the administration: Let’s sit down and have an honest discussion about life after war—the war that followed us home. This administration must acknowledge and understand the true cost of war—not just on the battlefield, but on our spouses, our children, and our communities.
Our nation’s veterans delivered an efficient workforce during wartime, demonstrating unwavering commitment, discipline, and sacrifice. That same dedication carries over into the federal workforce today. The men and women who led our war campaigns, who answered the call to serve, are the very same men and women you are now forcing out of work. This is not just a policy decision—it is a betrayal of those who fought for this country.
We urge this administration to reconsider these harmful cuts, protect the integrity of the PACT Act, and work with, not against, the veteran community to uphold the promise made to those who have sacrificed everything.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Rosie Torres
Burn Pits 360, Executive Director
Rosie.Torres@burnpits360.org
361-816-4015
For a PDF version of this press release Click Here.
