WASHINGTON – At a time when the Department of Veterans Affairs has been processing record levels of disability claims, Democrats warned last week that the agency’s productivity will not last under the deep cuts ordered by President Donald Trump.
The 2022 PACT Act broadened eligibility for VA disability claims. Staff increases under the Biden administration enabled the VA to keep up with the growing number of claims.
However, VA Secretary Doug Collins said in March the department plans to deeply slash its employees to return to 2019 staffing levels. Based on the goals of the Trump administration to shrink the federal government, Collins said the VA plans to lay off around 72,000 people over the next year, a 15% decrease in their current staff levels.
“How can claims be processed and care be delivered if VA isn't adequately staffed or equipped?” Rep. Mark Takano, D-CA, said on April 10 at a House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing.
In February, the VA dismissed around 2,400 employees.
After serving their country, and getting injured or sick, veterans often rely on the VA for disability benefits.
The PACT Act allowed for more veterans to file for disability veteran compensation. Over 1.7 million disability claims, linked directly to the PACT Act, were filed in the first two years as part of 4.4 million claims overall in the same time frame.
The processing rate of disability claims has continued to increase. The VA processed 8.5% more disability claims this year—compared to the same time frame in 2024—said Kenneth Smith, an assistant deputy under secretary for operations management at the Department of Veterans Affairs, on April 9 at a House Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs subcommittee hearing.
The department expects to surpass last fiscal year’s recordof 2.5 million processed claims.
"While significant progress has been made, we recognize the need for continuous improvement and adapting to evolve [to the] needs of those we serve," Smith said.
Smith noted the current disability claim backlog, which was around 230,000 as of April 5, was slowly shrinking. He said the department receives 10,000 daily claims but processes around 11,000 daily.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-TX, said inefficient bureaucratic systems could unnecessarily delay or dismantle the application process of a veteran.
“There will always be a problem set that exists,” Luttrell said. “The VA is such a wonderful working machine. I mean, I say that wholeheartedly, it has its problems. We should forever be changing in order to keep up with the wants and needs our veterans face.”
The subcommittee hearing was held a day after Democratic members of both the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees, including Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-KY, signed a letter denouncing an executive order from President Donald Trump that eliminates certain collective bargaining and labor rights for public servants at the VA and other agencies.
“We need them [VA staff members] to be able to do their best work without unnecessary limits or undermining their importance to the system,” McGarvey said. “Unfortunately, this administration continues to spread the false message that the VA employees are not dedicated to their mission.”
The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing focused on the Trump administration’s elimination of labor rights for VA workers and veterans who work for the federal government.
Senior Advisor George Chewning at the Union Veterans Council, which represents veterans, said cutting 2,400 from the VA staff had already slowed services but it has been difficult to get a complete picture of the effects.
“It’s hard to imagine a world in which the VA can serve those additional hundreds of thousands of veterans that are now receiving benefits and care while removing the staffing that was brought in to support that,” said Chewning, who was a White House fellow under Trump’s first administration and Biden’s administration.
Ismael M. Belkoura is a graduate journalism student with the Medill News Service at Northwestern University. He specializes in health, business and legal reporting.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.