A contracting firm called Leidos took in more than $16 billion in revenue last yearaaffgame, most of it through contracts with federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs.

So when the Trump administration’s budget cutters took aim at the V.A. last month, it seemed like bad news not just for the department’s employees but also for Leidos and dozens of other private-sector firms.

“No more paying consultants to do things like make Power Point slides and write meeting minutes!” the department’s secretary, Doug Collins, wrote on X. Overall, the department indicated that it was canceling more than 850 contracts worth nearly $2 billion.

But shortly after Mr. Collins’s announcement, the outlook for some of the V.A.’s contractors seemed to brighten. The department put the cancellations on pause, saying it needed to review the contracts to avoid “eliminating any benefits or services” to veterans or V.A. beneficiaries. It later narrowed the list of canceled contracts by a few hundred.

And experts on government contracting said cuts to the agency, which announced last week that it was seeking to trim 80,000 of its roughly 480,66jogo000 employees, could even lead to increased spending on federal contracts.

These experts noted that cutting employees without reining in a government function — like providing health care and benefits to veterans, work in which Leidos plays a key role — typically means the job will fall more heavily on contractors.

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A day earlier, when her husband first noticed the drooping, the couple drove three hours to an emergency room, only for the doctor to send her home after labeling her symptoms as benign.

The outcome of this presidential election could be critical to determining whether the United Statesaaffgame, the world’s biggest historic source of the greenhouse gasses that are dangerously warming the planet, cuts its pollution enough to keep global warming within relatively safe limits. Scientists say the window for action is rapidly closing.