oOn March 5, the news of the plans to cut 80,000 jobs by Veterans’ wealthy wealth. The movement is natural when the Trump administration and the government efficiency are considering continuous efforts to crush federal labor.
However, Trump administrative officials have drastically departed from past practices and disrupted the effect of these cuts on veterans. at interview For example, with the PBS news time, Doug Collins, the Secretary of State, the Veterans’ Military Secretary of State, dismissed the claim that the former US Marine Jeremy Cope was a meeting for veterans who suffered from drug abuse and mental health due to lack of employees. Collins replied, “It’s just a journalism that doesn’t work.”
The secretary’s response is opposite how his predecessors approached the treatment of veterans for almost two centuries. In the first repetition of federal nursing for aging and former services for the disabled, civil servants have seen the balance between the needs of efficiency and the need to be provided as essential as well as possible for comfort and good management for US Veterans. In the past, when the quest guy for efficiency was raised, the former administration heard the opposite Veterans. If the Trump administration begins to focus on maximizing efficiency at all costs and ignores warnings about how treatment is weak, they will ignore the controlled formula after the 19th century.
Read more: Trump’s tremendous cuts for VA betray the same veterans as me.
In 1826, the Congress approved the plan to build the US Navy asylum, the first federal residence for aging and disabled soldiers in Philadelphia. Even before the exile opened, federal officials, executives, and private citizens, who signed a contract with the government, made a facility that actually comforted residents of Veterans and attempted to maintain tightening with public funds.
In December 1829, William Strickland, an architect who designed the facility, made this balanced behavior. report In parliament. He classified the building as “a commodity and magnificent building” that shows that “the state is not owed to debt.” Nevertheless, the architecture already cost almost $ 200,000 (more than $ 6 million today), but he emphasized that the architect respected his budget as much as possible and the cost of completing the project was nearly $ 242,000. Strickland explained that when compared to other architecture and engineering efforts, Strickland explained, “In this country or Europe, the same amount of labor and materials have been raised by the government or individual spent too little money.”
In 1833, when the institution opened as a space for more than 400 veterans, the naval officers tried to provide residents with a comfortable life. This included wearing clothes with the entire closet. By 1843, the Veterans regularly received a navy blue jacket, a cotton and linen pants pair, flannel drawers and shirts, socks, shoes, white and check -in shirts, silk and noodles. Less regularly, public officials provided high -quality suits and thick peas jackets.
But even if the Navy asylum police officers had to provide high -quality wardrobes to the residents, Washington’s officials maintained the expectation that the federal dollar would be efficiently spent. The Navy asylum Governor William McKean spent a lot of time to choose the best fabric provided at the most fair price. The Navy ABEL P. Upshur has ordered a restriction on clothing costs. He said the naval department could spend about $ 1,300 in 2025 to the entire wardrobe of each resident.
In the 1830s and 1840s, more veterans entered the Navy asylum, and officials attempted to use the space more efficiently. Since 1839, this building is the predecessor of three individual institutions, a naval exile for Veterans, a hospital for Navy sailors, and a small school for mid -term man -Anapolis. Officials believed that they would save federal funds by using one structure to perform separate functions.
But the movement was counterproductive. It protested after the quality of life of Veterans’ lives decreased. them petition To better meet their needs to reorganize the facility. Residents’ disagreements prevented civil servants in that their inquiry to balance the quality of efficiency and treatment began to compromise the experience of veterans in the Navy asylum.
Officials responded by meeting the demands of veterans and embarking on expansion projects. They reconstructed Strickland and built two residence on both sides of the main structure of the agency governor and the chief surgeon who occupied the apartment at the time. The work range was also related to the construction of a wall around the building, building two gate houses, and helping all related discovery, drainage work and packaging.
The official estimate of destruction, walls and gate houses was $ 20,333 or almost $ 1 million today. Despite the heavy price tag, Charles W. Morgan Governor has reported that expenditures will secure both “efficiency and comfort of facilities.” For the governor, both of these features were both It is important in asylum.
At this time, Morgan proposed to remove Mid Thamman into a separate institution. Police officers have begun to accept young people in the city’s “expensive hotels,” and Veterans have complained about the school’s influence on treatment, so this action will not only appease the current residents but also save money in the long run and create dozens of vacancy for more veterans.
Read more: 80,000 Veterans’ military work staff are located in Doge’s cutting board.
Officials will be more expensive to establish new institutions and build new buildings for Mid -Tomman, but in this case, they will create a more effective federal government.
Luxurious spending and good intentions sometimes led to fiscal waste, and all Veterans who lived in Navy’s asylum did not guarantee a positive experience. Sometimes the residents stole their clothes from their comrades and sold their profits in their pockets. Police officers fell asleep in the cells of the best story of asylum. The water has been soaked regularly through the basement and windows of the structure, and requires funds for almost continuous maintenance.
But even though the quality of nursing did not fit their intentions, public officials maintained their promise to provide it and listen to the veterans’ words, even if the parliament respected the budget for funding. For this reason, the construction, renovation and provisions of naval exile real estate 1988When the federal government finally sold the land and the remaining buildings to a private development company.
The fact that the original structure of Strickland remains an anchor of the Naval Plaza community in Philadelphia, which is evidence of the high quality treatment of veterans after 200 years after construction. The federal officials were interested in avoiding waste, but they found a balance and did not see the responsible budget and quality control mutually exclusively. In fact, they were essentially viewed as part of the federal government’s job.
This history suggests that the steep reduction of staff in the Veterans’ department is the opposite of the US caring for the Veterans for almost two centuries. In addition, cuts do not necessarily mean the responsibility of public funds. Finally, this history shows the advantages of listening to the veterans and staff who warn of efficiency. result. In relation to the Veterans, the federal government has been working for a long time to treat efficiency and the best quality.
Moyra Williams Eaton is a Ph.D. Candidate for History of Pennsylvania State University.
What was produced by history is to take readers beyond the headline through articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History here. The expressed opinion does not necessarily reflect the view of the time editor.
