Article Summary –
Project 2025, devised by former Trump administration officials, proposes severe reductions in veterans’ benefits and programs, including the rescission of abortion and gender-affirming care directives and the curtailment of veterans’ disability benefits. The plan advocates for political control over the Department of Veterans Affairs by replacing civil servants with political appointees and suggests reducing benefits by reviewing and potentially revoking veterans’ disability ratings. Critics argue that these measures would undermine veterans’ well-being, deter military enlistment, and potentially harm national security.
Project 2025, the right-wing roadmap for a potential second Trump presidency, could be disastrous for veterans. The plan, written by former Trump administration officials, includes harsh steps to curtail benefits and programs for veterans.
The playbook’s chapter on the Department of Veterans Affairs calls for ensuring “political control of the VA” by replacing civil servants with political appointees. It says the next Republican administration should rescind VA directives that mandate abortion services, which it labels “a medical procedure unrelated to military service that the VA lacks the legal authority and clinical proficiency to perform.”
It proposes rescinding any clinical policy directives “contrary to principles of conservative governance,” starting with abortion services and gender-affirming care, without specifying those principles.
“On reproductive health care, the project seeks to ban public funds for reproductive health care and abortion for active service members, stripping away critical health care for millions of women, potentially pushing them away from military service,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan legal services group.
This provision is part of a larger agenda within Project 2025 to strip away abortion rights in the US after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022. Project 2025 suggests erasing the word “abortion” from federal laws, using the Comstock Act of 1873 to ban mail-order abortion medication, restricting contraception, and requiring federal agencies to collect data on abortion care recipients.
The playbook argues that the next Republican administration should curtail veterans’ disability benefits.
The VA assigns veterans a disability rating for service-related disabilities, ranging from 10% to 100%, with tax-free benefits.
Project 2025 suggests reducing these benefits by speeding up a review of disability rating criteria to save money while preserving benefits for future claims.
The legalese in the document belies the truth of the plan, according to Michael Embrich, a former policy advisor to the VA secretary: “They would review every veteran’s benefit compensation and potentially take it away if they determine the condition no longer exists, which is unprecedented.”
Revising disability ratings for future claimants means many disabled veterans wouldn’t get benefits at all, and the plan’s goal of “preserving them fully or partially for existing claimants” could cut benefits even for veterans currently receiving them, Embrich said.
“It’s like telling Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security recipients they don’t qualify anymore based on an arbitrary federal decision,” Embrich said.
Naveed Shah, political director of the progressive veterans group Common Defense, said it’s already difficult for veterans to access disability benefits.
“Many veterans are frequently denied and must apply multiple times to get basic care,” Shah said.
He said there should be verification before approving disability benefits to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse, but Project 2025’s plans go far beyond what is reasonable.
“When people join the military, they write a blank check to the United States, including their life. There’s no cost too great to care for veterans when they return,” he said.
Other plans in the playbook stipulate firing 75% of federal employees within four years, potentially causing 300,000 veterans who work for the federal government to lose their jobs, Embrich said. He noted it would reclassify civil service employees as political appointees, allowing the president to fire them at will.
“It should alarm every veteran, whether they receive benefits or not, because it’s an all-out assault on veterans,” Embrich said. “And what does that do to national security? Why join the military if veterans are treated poorly by the federal government? Where’s the incentive?”
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