Our Republican Legacy (ORL) Policy Statement Supporting U.S. Military Veterans

The issue. The Trump Administration is reversing U.S. policy supporting our military veterans by breaking our promises given to them upon enlistment and disrespecting their service to our country. Trump’s proxy, Elon Musk’s DOGE team, has enacted severe budget cuts to the Veterans Affairs (VA) Department. These detrimental cuts have been done with no strategic planning or advanced cost-benefit analysis or conceivable care as to the impact on veterans’ lives. Illustrative of Trump’s disdain for the military, his executive order to remove Veteran’s Day as a national holiday, replacing it with events that extol only “successful” missions, is absurd and insulting to all veterans. These actions systematically devalue, degrade, and harm veteran’s lives with potentially lethal effects.

To the veteran military population, who routinely risk both mind and limb in training and duty abroad, the very minimum of what the American military deserves is support upon completion of service and quality lifetime medical care. The wounds are at times external and obvious, but many are unseen and for that reason, have proved exceedingly deadly. Roughly seventeen veterans die by suicide every day.

The Trump administration under Musk’s DOGE plans to cut at least 80,000 positions from the VA in 2025, per an internal memo, of which 27% are veterans. Additionally, DOGE has eliminated $2 billion in VA contracts, including those vital for cancer care, toxic exposure assessments, and disability evaluations. The Veterans Crisis Line, managing roughly 60,000 calls monthly, has endured critical cuts to personnel already experiencing shortages and impounding stress of current staffers doing this essential work. These cuts are in line with Trump’s sentiment regarding his value of military personnel, who he has called “suckers and losers.”

ORL policy position. ORL’s principle of “peace through strength” requires a strong U.S. military to defend our national interests and that includes support for our military veterans after they complete their service to our country. ORL strongly supports our U.S. military veterans and keeps the promises our nation has made to them for their service to our country. We oppose the Trump administration’s plan to disassemble the VA and policy of dishonoring our veterans. The VA provides health and welfare to the veteran population as well as vital jobs that provide financial support, purpose, and meaning to these individuals. These are foundational positions of ORL.

ORL strongly supports quality employment, education, healthcare, and mental health treatment of our veteran military populations within the VA’s facilities, including bolstering the hiring and support of the Veterans Crisis Line, so they can offer this critical service to help keep our wounded warriors alive and well. ORL supports the re-hiring and canceling of plans for personnel cuts within the VA system. Our veterans have risked life and limb in service to our country. As a nation, it is our responsibility to support our military during and after they participate in the Defense Department’s mission to protect our national security, both at home and abroad.

ORL also supports maintaining Veteran’s Day as a national holiday, honoring veterans from all branches of the military whether the conflict was deemed a success or not.

Action required.

• ORL calls for an end to the Trump Administration’s detrimental policies harming the VA’s ability to support and protect our returning and retired military population. We support a strategic process to ensure our promises are kept to deliver services to which veterans are entitled, as effectively and efficiently as possible.

  
  

• ORL requests the President declare support for our nation’s heroes, irrespective of his view of their participation in various past conflicts.

  
  

• ORL asks the President to publicly renounce firings of VA veteran employees, to reinstate VA jobs, and to cancel future planned firings.

  
  

• ORL asks the President to publicly renounce cuts to the Veteran Suicide Hotline as well as reinstate fired employees providing life-saving assistance.

  
  

• If the Administration will not reverse course to support our veterans as they have been promised to the full extent of the law and authorized budgets, then ORL calls on Congress to correct the Administration’s failures and deficiencies during the current budget reconciliation process as soon as possible. We call upon Congress to enact legislation and to wield their influence in budgetary negotiations to protect the VA system.

  
  

• As the rates of suicide are already many times that of the civilian population, ORL requests Congress to act to ensure the Veteran Suicide Hotline is consistently funded and protected.  Without these measures to support our veterans and address the Trump administration’s failures to honor and respect our veterans, we will further erode the willingness of people of all backgrounds to serve and protect our nation.

  
  

• Congress must reject any change to Veteran’s Day that would honor only specific service members and diminish our collective respect and support for all military veterans alike.

  
  

• ORL calls on every American - Republican, Democrat, and Independent - to let the Administration know that we oppose the Administration’s disrespect and dishonoring of our military veterans via firings, dangerous cuts to the Veteran Suicide Hotline, and changes to important and honored military traditions.