Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins told Newsmax his primary focus is reducing unnecessary spending to make sure more money is available to spend on veterans.Collins told “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE” that millions of dollars have been wasted by the department on things like training employees how to create slides for PowerPoint presentations.

“I’ve been saying this from day one. Inside this beltway, there is a mindset that government is the institution. Government is the client,” he said.Collins says that approach of serving the bureaucracy first is being swept aside as he continues looking at every aspect of the VA and how to better serve America’s veterans.Collins has been forced to hold back on some cost cutting after a dispute with members of congress, which is not yet resolved. But Collins says cost cutting does not mean reducing critical care.

“We exempted over 300,000 positions in the Department of VA because we wanted to make sure anybody that touches a veteran or healthcare forward facing benefits, we didn’t bother those because we’re going to make sure we’re doing our job,” he said.The VA this week announced processing one million disability claims faster than ever before. “In fact, the 10 highest claims processing days in VA’s history occurred within the last month, and the department’s highest claims processing day ever was Feb. 12, when VA processed more than 12,000 claims,” according to a release.The release points to the dollar volume being processed by the VA. “Through January, VA has provided $62 billion in compensation and pension benefit payments to 6.9 million veterans and survivors.”

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