During his confirmation hearing Jan. 21, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins pledged to preserve veterans benefits and not “balance the budgets on the backs of veterans.”
But the confirmation of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who contributed to two conservative playbooks that support significant changes to VA disability benefits, has put veterans service organizations on guard against any potential shifts in VA compensation.
Vought, confirmed Thursday in a 53-47 Senate vote, spearheaded a 2023 report by the Center for Renewing America think tank that called for reducing VA disability compensation for veterans who reach Social Security retirement age and eliminating unemployability benefits for these veterans as well.
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The report also proposed cutting disability compensation to veterans with ratings lower than 30% and dropping disability compensation for veterans whose health conditions aren’t directly related to military duty.
Vought also contributed to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a conservative federal government, which recommended the VA revamp its disability ratings schedule to eliminate any conditions that are “tenuously related or wholly unrelated to military service.”
Project 2025’s VA section, written by former VA Chief of Staff Brooks Tucker, suggested that the new administration “target significant cost savings from revising disability rating awards for future claimants while preserving them fully or partially for existing” recipients.
While President Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during his campaign and Collins said in his hearing that he had not read the document, the administration has, in its first three weeks of office, implemented the document’s recommendations on eliminating diversity initiatives, freezing federal funding, and withdrawing from the Paris Climate agreement, among others.
Trump has completed one Center for Renewing America recommendation — signing an executive order that enforces the Hyde Amendment barring the use of federal funds for abortions — and moved to end protections for transgender individuals, also suggested in the document.
Veterans service organizations say they have seen no evidence that the administration is moving to implement those publications’ recommendations on VA disability compensation, but their leaders said any efforts would be met by strong opposition.
Randy Reese, executive director of the Disabled American Veterans’ Washington Headquarters, said “means testing,” or basing disability compensation on a veterans household income or any other restrictions, would be “unconscionable and morally indefensible.”
“DAV vehemently opposes any proposal or action that would unfairly strip our nation’s heroes of their earned benefits. Any effort to balance the budget on the backs of disabled veterans will be met with vigorous opposition from DAV and our coalition partners,” Reese said in a statement to Military.com.
Cole Lyle, the American Legion’s national veterans and rehabilitation director, said OMB and the Congressional Budget Office routinely offer suggestions to reduce annual budget deficits and the national debt, but the Trump administration has not “given any indication” that means-testing for veterans disability compensation is a priority.
“And no legislation has been introduced on this issue in the 119th Congress. But to be clear: Any potential attempt to pursue this idea will be met with stiff resistance from the Legion and the veteran community writ large,” Lyle said in a statement.
The Center for Renewing America recommendations would shave $136.3 billion from the VA budget over 10 years, according to the report.
Project 2025 did not provide a savings analysis for its recommendations, but a 2023 Heritage Foundation budget proposal said the federal government could save nearly $200 billion through 2032 by eliminating military retirees’ access to full VA disability compensation and cutting disability payments to those whose conditions aren’t directly tied to military duty.
A Congressional Budget Office report in December suggested that means testing could save $334 billion from the federal government’s mandatory spending through 2034.
The CBO said that the VA could save that money by providing full benefits only to veterans whose household income is below $135,000, not counting disability income. According to the CBO, about 70% of veterans receiving disability payments would still be eligible for their current benefits under that threshold.
Reese said compensation should not be “contingent upon household income or good fortune independent of the government’s obligations to them, full stop.”
“Disabled veterans have made tremendous sacrifices, enduring physical and mental injuries in service to our nation. They have rightfully earned the compensation they receive for the disabling effects of their service-connected injuries and illnesses,” Reese said.
During Vought’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., pressed Vought on means testing and whether he supports cutting disability pay for veterans with less than a 30% disability rating.
Vought didn’t directly answer the questions, saying only that Trump would “put forward everything they need for what the Department of VA does.”
“I’m not here on behalf of what I think, I’m here on behalf of the president,” Vought said. “[The Center for Renewing America] is a think tank I am currently the president of. It is not an agenda of the president,” Vought said.
A week later, Blumenthal then pressed Collins for answers.
“I need from you a commitment that you will oppose any such efforts by the administration,” Blumenthal said.
“We’re going to put the veterans first. And for me, that decision comes to the secretary. That’s in our budgetary oversight,” Collins replied.
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