I keep seeing articles that seem to assume that it's a good issue for Democrats: How terrible that humble workers are getting fired!
Is that the public opinion, or do people think the federal government is over-inflated and not terribly beneficial? Trump got elected for a reason. What's the evidence that people want to see a preservation of the status quo?
The latest article I'm reading is "Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next/A DOGE team plans to fire federal workers who are not in DEI roles and employees in offices that protect equal rights, internal documents show" (WaPo)(free-access link).
In the coming weeks, the documents show, DOGE has planned for the Trump administration to trim staff from dozens of offices across the executive branch.... Among the groups targeted are a Veterans Affairs office that works to ensure all veterans receive equal access to care and an office within Health and Human Services that provides information about the health of minority populations. The DOGE team is also looking to place on leave, and ultimately fire, scores of government employees who do not work in DEI roles but who perform functions that DOGE determined were related to DEI, the documents show. It is unclear precisely how DOGE intends to decide whether employees’ jobs are tied to DEI.... Trump campaigned against DEI, calling it divisive and destructive....
I suspect the majority opinion in America is: good.
What's in the WaPo comments? The AI summary tells me the comments "overwhelmingly express concern and alarm" and say we're seeing "a move towards white supremacy and authoritarianism."
Posts
114 comments:
I have to say, the fact that Trump only beat Harris by a few percentage points does almost lead me to despair. It may well be that there is a huge contingent, likely composed entirely of college-educated white women, who feel sorry for the criminal perverts who have been sucking our blood and ruining our lives for the last few decades.
Maybe I could start an NGO to give them all nice "Will Work For Food" sign necklaces. And some folding plastic chairs to sit on, down to the freeway on-ramp. It would make me feel so virtuous, to be helping these poor sufferers. Plus, I could pay myself about a million bucks a minute!
It all depends on whether these paragons of public service were coming to the office five days a week. See Jamie Dimon's rant about trying to get his Chase Bank employees on the phone on Fridays.
If you have been happy with the performance of the federal government, and its impact on our lives, then this saddens you. If not, then you think an overhaul is appropriate. Seems like one of those 80/20 issues, with 80% being generally unhappy with the government's performance/impact.
"I keep seeing articles that seem to assume that it's a good issue for Democrats ...".
It does rather seem that you are reading a lot of articles about what might be a good issue for Democrats. I will just point out, that there are two years before the next set of elections, and four years before the next Presidential election. And Trump is just getting started. I like to think, that by '26, "Longer visiting hours at the Camps!' will be a good issue for Democrats. Or "Down with shallow graves! Six feet is a right, not a privilege".
I think Trump and his team are doing a very good job in revealing just how much bloat there is in the federal government, and the dems are doing a good in demonstrating how important that bloat is to them in terms of maintaining their political power. So Americans don't really look at this as a sob story about individuals trying to keep their jobs, but as a story about the dems having overtaken the government itself to such an extent that they control the country regardless of electoral results, and how that needs to change if we want a functioning democracy.
Insourcing, outsourcing, and DEI (i.e. institutional, systemic Diversity) were the status quo, the Democratic model rejected by the majority of Americans. Especially Diversity (i.e. class-disordered ideologies). That said, trillions of dollars of benefits don't grow on trees and their burden is not sequestered, but rather shared. DOGE is the analytic arm of the executive to identify waste, fraud; and abuse... the fleecing of Americans and other purposes.
Dogma got it right above. The federal bureaucracy is not meant to be a one-party grift operation. Nor a two-party one, for that matter. It is meant to do a job, not suck revenue out of the population for the benefit of the bureaucracy. The mine containing the retirement file is a wonderful example of "not just no - Hell no!" as far as I'm concerned.
Wow, WaPo is mostly focused on the DEI roles being cut. I think most Americans don’t even care if every DEI role in or out of government was eliminated. All DEI does is sow division, intolerance, and exclusion. I’m waiting to see large departments and agencies cut.
I've noticed people outraged that they have been affected by the cuts, as if they're special and shouldn't have to go through the layoff turmoil that millions of the rest of us have done. That makes this purge a critical thing to do - people in gov jobs shouldn't be so arrogantly entitled while the rest of us bear the burden of job dislocations.
These job cuts are caused by the insane bureaucratic bloat that's taken place over decades, not Trump nor Musk.
Biden ramped up non-military federal employment by something like 10% in the last two years of his administration, after it had been basically flat for 25 years. That needs to be undone, and then some.
Once upon a time, federal workers earned less than the private sector. So having good retirement benefits and making it difficult to be fired were generally good things. That has not been true for a very long time. They earn more, generally have better benefits and since they are hard to fire once they become career a lot of them do not really do the job they were ostensibly hired for. I am for reducing the federal workforce by numbers approaching what Musk did at twitter. I am for rooting out ALL of the graft and waste and corruption and I am for prosecuting anyone that is guilty of the grift.
Harder and faster DOGE.
Articles I read state a tremendous amount of these firings were for probationary employees hired within the last two years. What in the last two years demanded such a large amount of hirings, other than to tweak the unemployment numbers during an election year?
As far as employees with years of employment in a job that has no real use, except to perpetuate bureaucracy, I have no compassion, or concern. Tax dollars are a limited resource, and borrowing from future revenue just to keep someone a job is a unconscionable waste.
Without any way to determine how the poll was completed, I have no faith in the results. If you ask the right people, you will always confirm your position; regardless of accuracy.
“ and say we're seeing "a move towards white supremacy and authoritarianism."
2 + 2 =Five
I can't get over approx 250k new hires each year over the last three years. That's tons of people! How does that even happen?? Illegals must be a huge number in the mix... Does the gov not e-verify itself?
Eighty percent of the public probably believes that the country would work better and that the economy would work better for the average person if government was pruned back. When you have Bill Maher talking about GAO reports, you have completely lost the publicity battle. I'm not thrilled that government workers are losing their jobs, but the exploding federal debt and federal deficit is just as much a threat to them as it is to the average citizen.
Under current law Social Security payments are due to be cut about 20% or so by 2033. The average person is certainly willing to spread the pain around.
When DEI started just a few years ago, I had no idea it would create a giant bureaucracy in Government, academia and private industry. It all needs to go!
Federal bureaucrats, and employees of NGOs receiving federal funds and federal contractors are a big part of the WaPo’s local readership. The WaPo has to give its readership what it wants: lamentations that the party is over.
Federal bureaucrats, and employees of NGOs receiving federal funds and federal contractors are a big part of the WaPo’s local readership. The WaPo has to give its readership what it wants: lamentations that the party is over.
I, for one, love that Trump found a person to lead his austerity effort who need have absolutely no fear of what anyone or anything can do to him, who can do the job with the utmost celerity, and who can leave the office should the political heat poured on him require it. And then be replaced by another lightning rod who can attract the thunderbolts of opposition, while continuing the work. While Trump sits at his Oval Office desk, smiling and doing EOs and organizing legislation, as a president should.
People are good with goldbrickers and ideologues getting fired or laid off. The country is $36 trillion in debt. Before the government decides to cut a fine from Social Security and Medicare it has to get rid of every wasted or fraudulent expenditure.
This is the second American Revolution. The people of America against their DC overlords.
This reminds me of the early 1990s during the downsizing of the military following the end of the Cold War. Programs like
the Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA), the Reduction in Force (RIF), and Selective Early Retirement Boards (SERBs) were used to help reduce the size of the DoD. I don't remember many people complaining about our contracting military forces.
All I think about when Fed employees whine about losing their job quickly are the workers from the Keystone Pipeline. They were out of a job in a day and were told “learn how to code”!
So…fed employees: LEARN HOW TO CODE!
I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of people working from home are actually productive. That suggests to me that a smaller number of people actually working in office would be sufficient.
"I keep seeing articles that seem to assume that it's a good issue for Democrats: "
remember those "polls"? that said that '31% of Americans' thought Biden's economy was 'doing well'??
THOSE people think it's TERRIBLE that government deadweights are being let go ..
because THOSE people ARE the government deadweights.
The REST of America think it's GREAT.
I'd tell y'all to 'do the math'.. but thanx to the Dept of Education y'all probably Can't
In the over 40 years since my 6 year stint in the United States Navy, I have not once required any veterans related services. And hope not to. (With the possible exception of my burial.
One of the things that happened while I was in the Navy is that I “grew a pair” and that it would seem was sufficient to carry me the rest of my life.
For the first time in more than two decades, a majority of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction. The poll showing this was taken just this past week, well after the firings began.
The normals see the democrats as Soviets.
Seriously..
If we postulate, for the sake of argument..
That Government Employees were NOT allowed to vote..
When would have been the last time a Democrat got elected President?
I'm guessing 1964?
meanwhile:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2025/02/15/army-siphons-over-151-million-from-soldier-food-buget-and-leave-the-troops-hungry-n2185616
n November 2024, soldiers at Fort Carson, Colorado, were served a single slice of toast and a scoop of lima beans for dinner. Of the $22 million available to buy food at Fort Carson, only $5 million was used for that purpose. At Fort Hood, Texas, only two of ten dining facilities were open for service.
this isn't Even tax dollars wasted, "The money is collected in what amounts to a tax on troops -- taken from their Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) payments, roughly $460 per month that is automatically deducted from the paychecks of service members who live in barracks and is intended to help cover food costs"
So, they are taking MILLIONS of DOLLARS out of soldiers paychecks, and spending it on GOD Knows WHAT..
Not food!
DC needs to be a better steward of taxpayer's money before they start spouting off about people "paying their fair share".
And yes, I would truly love to see how Samatha Powers amassed a $30 million fortune on government salary. Did she write a book on "how to make $30 million using this one easy trick", that came with a huge publishing royalty?
"Articles I read state a tremendous amount of these firings were for probationary employees hired within the last two years."
Well, that's only because those are the ones they can fire easily. They do not yet have the full perquisites and immunities of the American aristocracy. They are second-class citizens, almost as low as the rest of us.
Quit whining, you get what you deserve only 3 years and 11 months to go unless trump pulls a china thing and stays forever ,whose gonna enforce anything if he decides. Murkowski's tweet is receiving plenty of reactions on X, some from users who are arguing that members of her party are the ones inflicting this damage.
X user Gail Dow tweeted, "Your party & you propping Trump up has allowed this to happen. Stop whining about something you enabled, Lisa Murkowski. Similarly, X user Timothy Bellman, a Democrat, posted, "What did you think would happen with this administration?" Do what your told or there will be consequences.....Honey did you find my slippers yet?
Good. And I'll go one further I don't care if the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. They can reapply for their former jobs. I would also add that every three years every public sector employees has to reapply for their job.
I first became aware of the American aristocracy in the 90's, when a Forest Service intern was kidnapped while working in the Cascades. The FBI descended upon the area in force, and found her handcuffed to a cot in a van. I expect the kidnapper is still in prison, if he's still alive.
At about the same time, a cashier was kidnapped from a convenience store here in Eugene. The FBI did not descend in force on the area, and she was never seen again.
They take care of their own. And that does not include us.
Yes they should be fired. Or, rather, ‘let go’. I’m sure many feel they did nothing to deserve it, but they have the inability to retroactively look at their jobs and realize they did and contributed nothing, in the best case.
The left's non-stop outrage is tired.
“ or do people think the federal government is over-inflated and not terribly beneficial?”
Yes.
"Do the American people feel outraged when federal workers lose their job?"
I've lost more than one job in my life. If any government workers were outraged, I'm not aware of it.
So... no.
“offices that protect equal rights”. Let the courts handle that?
its a cost/benefit analysis, what benefit have we gotten from this slouching beast, which they want to expand
Is that the public opinion,
No
or do people think the federal government is over-inflated and not terribly beneficial?
Yes
This is an article in the Washington Post. I expect most newspapers would take the same tack since journalists nowadays spring from the same privileged class as the professional civil service, but for the Washington Post, this is their audience on the chopping block. These are the people who buy subscriptions, whose luxury consumption makes advertisements in the Washington Post worth the paper it's printed on, who keep their property values high with the tax money funneled to their salaries. I'm sure the journalists in question dress it up with a lot of highfalutin nonsense in their own heads, but there's a strong element of raw self interest in their freaking out about layoffs.
The country is approaching bankruptcy. Frankly, there is no choice in the matter. The fact that a large percentage of the federal workforce is unnecessary and another percentage are actively detrimental to the country makes it all the more inevitable.
Quelle surprise the recipients of the secret now not so secret largesse from the us treasury want to suggest voters should believe any cut is too much. I’m ready to cut too much according to the people doing the cutting not the people being cut.
I don't like it when people get laid off (or fired) from their jobs, but it happens all the time.
Just look at how many people lost their jobs during the pandemic; but, at the time, government workers seemed to be immune to this. Government workers shouldn't have any special privilige not to be laid off if their job is useless. (Especially if that job position didn't even exist a few years ago.) And government workers actually need to be doing their jobs to avoid getting fired.
Just look at all the administrative bloat in the educational system. It seems like administrators actually have it better than most teachers do these days. (And those administration jobs didn't even exist a few years ago.)
It's the inefficient bloat that needs to be gotten rid of, not efficient government operations. Everyone knows that we need a certain amount of government jobs to keep the government running. (The same way that everyone knows that there is way too much inefficiency in the government.) But if you give any organization funding without accountability, you're going to get inefficiency. Because we've had so many decades without accountability, it means that the layoffs will be extreme and painful at first.
Sure weed them out, and let them take those cushy and more renumerative "private sector" jobs they passed on.
But, keep an eye on the colateral damage: will this purge serve to further a political agenda (NYC) and remove checks on trump fraudsters (gimme some crypto memes please.)
It's important to baseline your understanding of the situation, before starting to allocate compassion and sympathy. We've learned that all of the firings and the early retirements barely get the number of federal employees back down to where they were - 4 years ago. Under Biden, the number metastasized.
Now: How many of these fired ex-employees have been working from home the past 5 years? How many have been showing up at the office for 2 days, every-other month, on the last day of one month and the first day of the next, to conform to the letter of the rules? How many actually do not live in the Washington DC area any more, due to this? How many are still collecting their Washington DC salary uplift, for the high cost of living?
Tick these boxes off, and then, let's talk about their performance reviews. That fair - right?
"Harder and faster DOGE" as someone said earlier...
I'm still amazed at how stunned into paralysis the Democrats and the media (BIRM) are right now.
Americans WANT this. Americans VOTED for this. And the democrats and the media do nothing but "protest" and bray an sing "we shall overcome" about Trump this and MAGA that, as if they are oppressed serfs. They ARE the damn government! The Anti-DOGE view seems to be:
They're cutting good projects.
Some might not be run well, but they're doing it wrong.
It'll only be a tiny % of the budget unless they kill Soc Sec.
This is appropriations, CONGRESS is supposed to do that -Constitutional Crisis!!!!!!!
Dems should support this (but they won't) and work with them and agree on cutting all the BS and then prepare an actual budget with lots of cuts. We all have to do that in our own lives. These elitist pricks don't care. They love their grift and don't want to give it up. Its Gavin Newsom eating indoors at the French Laundry without a mask while WE had to stay home and eat rock soup.
They did the same thing with protests and protestors. Protestors can burn and loot all the cities and they don't care. But when protestors entered the Capitol, OMG send them to prison for life!! How dare the people protest HERE.
I hope DOGE cuts harder and faster. And then the REPs stick together and get a reconciliation bill passed that cuts a LOT more.
I see lots of broad-brush comments above, and these reveal little understanding of the realities of federal jobs:
- Many are explicit patronage roles and "gifts" to disabled veterans (600K), DEI hires, or political friends. These are the result of pork-barrel bills and the sausage-making of federal laws. Many Republicans want to give disabled veterans a reward for...losing an arm or leg in combat...not because they know how to code or could ever contribute in any useful way. DO NOT blame the beneficiaries (employees) for this system -- change the system.
- Many jobs are clerks and program managers who handle payments (entitlements), grants, and contracts. Congress also stuffs bad ideas down the throats of various agencies (e.g., the Navy's atrocious Littoral Combat Ships or Little Cr*ppy Ships; the Zumwalt). Then, a bunch of engineers and contract personnel must be hired to administer an expensive but terrible program.
- Many jobs are meant to implement ultra-complex laws that come from Congress (i.e., lawyers, policy), analyze the effectiveness of programs (research staff), or contract out mandated research to others.
So, there's some meat and muscle plus lots and lots of DEI/veteran bloat. As with the 1980s military Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) program, reduction decisions are tough and usually require a 3rd party to force downsizing. Otherwise, power slowly corrupts the politicians and they fund more and more and more useless positions.
My father's job required him to deal with the FAA regularly. (c. 1970). Mostly about aviation safety issues. The continuing professional incompetence of the mid-level staff there was one of the few things that could get him really upset.
And some departments can probably be cut completely (Hello Dept of Education). But for those that are not cut completely, they also need to get them out of the DC area - move the jobs to Upper Peninsula Michigan, and Anchorage Alaska, and Buffalo NY, and Bismark ND, and make them go into the office every day. See how many stick around.
WaPo commenters are on the wrong end of the DOGE. For the first time since they started asking the question more Americans think the country is on the Right Track v. the Wrong Track.
https://www.newsweek.com/americans-think-country-right-track-rasmussen-poll-2031393
Everyone knows that a considerable chunk of federal tax dollars are wasted or misspent. The nature and scope of the mismanagement, outright fraud and the direction of monies for partisan political purposes which Musk has just begun to uncover is the first time we, the public, seem to be getting a straight answer as to what has been going on, how and why.
The public response can only be--it's about time. What really grates is that every time there has been even the slightest legislative effort to rein things in, the sole response has been the threat of a "government shutdown," and a lot of pure political gamesmanship.
Musk reminds the public, as an unquestionably successful businessman, that there really is no excuse for spending to be "out of control," other than that the people in charge benefit from it.
Just wait until DOGE starts in on the Pentagon. Then you will hear some howling (much of it from Republican politicians). Too bad. Time to clean house.
Professor Althouse said, "I suspect the majority opinion in America is: good." Ditto … a thousand times ditto!
They're leaving medical and pharmaceutical debt forcings under the Obamacares umbrella for last.
Enigma: As with the 1980s military Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) program, reduction decisions are tough and usually require a 3rd party to force downsizing. Otherwise, power slowly corrupts the politicians and they fund more and more and more useless positions.
"It's complicated" is no longer an acceptable excuse. The reason that 3d party commissions have been the way these things get done (on the very rare occasions when they do) is that there is no political will to do it. Trump has that political will--and the country is ready to get cutting.
Outraged when a worthless bureaucrat loses his/her job?
Hardly. What a ridiculous question.
Especially when said job is to cause more red tape difficulty for taxpayers.
"I see lots of broad-brush comments above, and these reveal little understanding of the realities of federal jobs:"
Maybe I don't have an expansive understanding of the reality of federal jobs but on the flip side, those holding them don't seem to have all that much of an understanding of the reality of the jobs people like I have/had.
And just to be clear, it's people like me being taxed that allows for federal job holders to have the jobs (and benefits and pensions) they do, not the other way around.
I listen to a financial radio show about retirement issues. The co-hosts said that consultants now have to run separate focus groups on retirement issues for government employees, because their pensions would UPSET everyone else.
I don't think DC understands this. I listen to phone calls from people who don't sound super smart are retiring at 52 or some crazy young age, and have amazing government pension.
It's not good, it's not bad, it's not unprecedented. Are Democrats sincerely crying replacement, displacement, DEI, abortion? Why NOW... now? Green cash cow. The People aren't so green that they will take a knee.
I understand there are a lot of construction and ag jobs out there, with all the assisted repatriations happening,
We've seen plenty of major job reductions in various industries/fields throughout the years, tech, finance, retail, hospitality, you name it. Plenty of blood-letting. I don't think I should feel any more or less concerned for a federal worker's plight than I did for the waitress or who lost her job because of the forced shut-down during the pandemic.
I can't get over approx 250k new hires each year over the last three years.
Remember that there are always departures and retirements every year too. There was a bit of a bump in hiring from Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, but basically the federal workforce is only about 1% bigger over the last five years or so.
Tom T: "Remember that there are always departures and retirements every year too. There was a bit of a bump in hiring from Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, but basically the federal workforce is only about 1% bigger over the last five years or so."
True, but approx 250k each year for the past three years is still a ton of hiring...
@AlbertAnonymous: But for those that are not cut completely, they also need to get them out of the DC area - move the jobs to Upper Peninsula Michigan, and Anchorage Alaska, and Buffalo NY, and Bismark ND, and make them go into the office every day. See how many stick around.
I've been hired to fix problems in broken agencies. I've observed "pajama people" with patronage jobs come to work every day to nap in their blankets and follow the rules in a rubber-room -- only to collect paychecks. Before COVID they did this with great care to ensure they didn't lose their jobs. They did this for decades on end. In-the-office mandates and cold work locations are a non-issue for these folks.
@Mason G: And just to be clear, it's people like me being taxed that allows for federal job holders to have the jobs (and benefits and pensions) they do, not the other way around.
Gift jobs come from Congress, with Veteran's preference hiring dating to 1883. If it's no longer desired, pressure Congress to end it. I've worked with these folks and often wish I didn't have to. Some are great, some are not.
https://www.mspb.gov/studies/studies/Veteran_Hiring_in_the_Civil_Service_Practices_and_Perceptions_1072040.pdf
How many times have we heard how government employees have sacrificed better compensation in the private sector to perform public service? Now's their chance to receive their just desserts.
WaPout. Focus on the issues, the underlying causes, dare I say it, the Diverse... no, diverse forcings, in diverse contexts.
One easy way to goose the monthly jobs created is to hire government employees. Rosy numbers every month followed quietly with revisions. (new sign in to remove my picture)
My late father (he would be 117 years old if he was alive today) was a civil engineer who spent 30 years from 1933 to 1963 working for various Federal bureaus or agencies. One of his first jobs was running a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the mountains in New Mexico. Most of the time he was working on building something whether for the Bureau of Reclamation, Corps of Engineer or the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks. The public could see tangible benefit or structure to what he and others like him did. These days, not so much. So if the Federal workforce is shrunk, most of us are not going to lose sleep over it. And Trump's shrinkage won't be the first. Reagan did it. Clinton did it. Bloat has to go some time.
During my working career I spent a total of 10 years in government service (two stints of 5 years). At the end of the second stint, I was on the verge of being fired because I repeatedly lost my temper with incompetent colleagues, who made it difficult or impossible for me to do my job well. I witnessed violations of the Hatch Act, supervisors who played computer games all day, employees who went out and played golf in the afternoon or ran their real estate businesses, and employees who traveled internationally to write reports that included little to no new information but rather recycled the content from a 5-year old report. None of these people were in danger of losing their jobs. As one of my colleagues noted, no one was fired because no one died because we did our jobs poorly. At the time, she and I foolishly believed that in the government agencies that actually dealt with life-and-death issues competent people ruled the roost.
I also witnessed major pay inflation as young college graduates were brought on board and swiftly promoted to GS 14 and 15 ranks. These people had credentials but no real experience that would truly aid the target clientele of the office. Just between the early 1980s and late 1990s, these rapid credential-based promotions seemed to explode. I can only image what it is like today.
If Trump manages to impose a major reduction-in-force on the bureaucracy, I will feel sympathy with some of my friends, but on the whole, I will be cheering him on.
I worked in DC as a lobbyist for 30 years and saw waste and over spending on steroids. All efforts to make meaningful change was futile. There may be some babies thrown out with the bath water but in this case it’s necessary. Purge the bureaucracy and start over smaller, leaner and efficient.
@Sally327 I have run a vegetable farm for 50 years, periodically in the Top 10% of all US farms by gross revenue. There is absolutely no way I'd ever hire a bureaucrat. They have not even the remotest concept of what "work" is.
Winters, I've earned my living as a trim carpenter, one step below cabinet-maker. The only way I'd hire a bureaucrat onto a job is if (s)he were a competent hobbyist who could back-champher a joint and fit it to a slightly irregular surface on the first try.
A couple of pertinent data points ...
a) of every direct federal "anti-poverty" dollar, only 24 cents actually makes it into the hands of a genuine, living poor person. The rest coddles bureaucrats, and the results are obvious.
b) in 1990, only one of the Top 10 wealthiest counties in America was a suburb of DC. Thirty years later, it was **six**, with three others in the Top 20.
I saw this same pattern in Bolivia, Paraguay, Haiti, and elsewhere. Let that sink in.
b)
Why would such a progressive, democrat leaning federal workforce need DEI departments to keep them in line with civil rights laws?
"Gift jobs come from Congress...
Kind of my point. And the checkout clerk at the supermarket pays for them with her taxes.
"If it's no longer desired, pressure Congress to end it."
Good luck with that. Try contacting your representative, you'll be lucky to get a form letter (or more likely, an email) from some low-level staffer in reply that kinda-sorta references your concern. Or maybe it won't, not that it'll matter in any effective sense.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Our federal government should not be a jobs program. Same goes for the states we live in.
"Doge" is a deliberately misspelled name given to an internet meme that is a picture of a Shiba Inu dog. The dog's real name is Kabosu, She died at age 18 last year. Elmo the Musk is a different kind of dog with the temperament of a Pit Bull.
..."white supremacy" ... Drink!
I found out (about 30 min ago), that a guy i know, that was working at Effigy Mounds National Mon just lost his job.
Apparently, it was last hired/first fired; because he'd only been there about a year.
Before he got his "dream job" (his words, not mine), he was working for our county conservation dept. After he quit the county job, they filled it, so he can't go back.
Of the rangers at Effigy, he certainly wasn't the worst, but compared to the Summer Intern that had the position before him, he wasn't the best (AND His position was (supposed to be) permanent, unlike hers).
He posted on facebook, what an outrage it was, that he'd "lost his dream job". Maybe he'll feel better, when they let some of the senior deadwood go too?
@Steven: I also witnessed major pay inflation as young college graduates were brought on board and swiftly promoted to GS 14 and 15 ranks. These people had credentials but no real experience that would truly aid the target clientele of the office. Just between the early 1980s and late 1990s, these rapid credential-based promotions seemed to explode. I can only image what it is like today.
In my experience the GS14s and GS15s were mostly capable of navigating their agencies and working effectively in DC. They aren't "terrible," except for the clear DEI hires.
The true federal cancer are the SES. They live at the top of the career staffers (>GS15) and interact with political appointees. As such, they tend to be political staff except in name, and pretend to be neutral. They sit at the top for decades on end, helping their favored Party shape the agency and slowing or harming the disfavored Party.
Per my observations, the main function of an SES is (1) to sit in meetings and nod "yes" to whoever is in power, (2) work behind-the-scenes to turn their fiefdom into a well-funded stovepipe, and (3) work to prevent any external oversight whatsoever. Too many cooks ruin the soup, and there were 8,222 redundant "senior executive" SES in 2022. I'm guessing Biden packed in hundreds more before he pardoned everyone near him.
https://ourpublicservice.org/fed-figures/senior-executive-service-trends-over-25-years/
Back in 1992, about half a million member of the military lost our jobs due to downsizing. I didn't hear any civil service employees upset about that, so pardon me if I don't get too upset about them losing their jobs. Besides, it takes the full income taxes of about 14 average tax filers to pay the full loaded cost of an average civil government employee. Every reduction is lifting some of the load off of people.
Are they going to replace them with recent college graduates from India, and make them train their foreign-born replacements? I would be opposed to that.
Let's go to the company newsletter for a company town to get the national perspective on layoffs to the primary employer in that town.
In my good ole days working for Neutron Jack we all figured any organization could take a 10% without a hiccup.
The sense of entitlement is off putting. I don't like to see anyone lose their job - but there is no lifetime guarantee of employment.
2 Trillion Dollars a year in added debt. As long as that is happening we aren’t done cutting. If we don’t it will hurt a LOT more later. This is the best chance in my lifetime to address this. We need to go too far rather than too little. We won’t have this chance again for at least 50 years.
@Bart Hall: b) in 1990, only one of the Top 10 wealthiest counties in America was a suburb of DC. Thirty years later, it was **six**, with three others in the Top 20.
Not only that, the DC suburb of Loudoun County became a focus of transgender ideology controversy. This place is where 'settled' bureaucrats go to buy houses and raise well-off ideological transgendered children. Then censor debate.
Examples of the controversy, but there's much more:
https://apnews.com/article/loudoun-virginia-lawsuit-transgender-bathroom-sexual-assault-a26168568cc20c2aa6cec9bef50e7c3f
https://publiclawlibrary.org/loudoun-parents-file-lawsuit-against-school-board-after-early-termination-of-public-comment-session/
I am well acquainted with a retired government employee of a large Federal agency, where he was a trainer. He once told me you could get rid of 80% of the employees where he worked and they would never be missed.
I have a measure of sympathy for these government workers. My dad was laid off after 24 years with a large computer corporation. He was out of work for three years and it was rough. Lost almost everything. My brother was let go from his company and he was out of work for several months. Got to the point where he either found a new job or had to dip into his retirement savings.
So I know from my family how rough it can be to lose one's job and be out of work for months or even a few years.
But that brings us back to *why* people are laid off. Because the company is doing badly. Because the employee isn't performing well in that position. Because the company reorganized and lets a ton of people go.
It sucks. But this is what many Americans face each day. The federal bureaucracy is bloated and in some cases has been used against the electorate in order to advance divisive and destructive ideologies.
Mixed feelings. I have family members who have lost jobs. I have family members in peril of losing jobs.
As someone who lost several jobs in the private sector (and always moved up after), I have no sympathy for career government bureaucrats.
I remember friends in grad school (45 years ago) whose ambition was to have a safe and secure government or academic job where they would never be fired or downsized and those industries would never collapse.
These were not people who wanted to contribute to society. They were people who wanted society to guarantee them an affluent and comfortable life.
I spent my career in DC as a private-sector lawyer. I dealt with a LOT of govt employees (some DC Govt. others Federal). By and large, I thought they did a good and professional job. But the real question is whether those employees were doing things that needed to be done. So far, the stories in the media focus on the trauma to those whose jobs may be eliminated.
But I see very little if any focus on what essential functions of the federal government would be compromised by these firings.
Give D.O.G.E a budget to hire an army of forensic accounts at a very low wage and no benefits but give them a commision for the mone y they find wasteful or grift. Taxes are for service, not charity and certainly not for graft.
These people being fired have spent the last 5 decades or so reducing my life's work to "greed". In return I feel fine reducing theirs to "waste". If they cared about nuance they had a lifetime to bring it up. But as usual they demand what they refuse to offer.
I have not investigated deeply, but supposedly real estate "for sale" listings in DC area are growing rapidly. If someone has investable cash, might want to buy in 2 years or so.
This is not a new issue. And unions are only a therapeutic salve. So, what is the solution to sustainable self-moderation through employing stake holders in an economy, in a society?
Can AI or can't AI?
"I see lots of broad-brush comments above, and these reveal little understanding of the realities of federal jobs:"
Honest to God, enigma, I really don't care.
@Rusty: Then let yourself get r*ped again and again by the creepy evil Deep State...as happens generation after generation. Cleaning a swamp forces one to get into the muck and find actionable weaknesses. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Wince said...
How many times have we heard how government employees have sacrificed better compensation in the private sector to perform public service?
Such a good point. We always knew this was bullshit, something they said solely to frame themselves as sacrificing rather than the grifters they are.
Now we see they always knew it too.
"We always knew this was bullshit..."
Re: Public service...
In your interactions with the government (for this exercise, assume you are unknown to the government worker- you're not a family member, friend or acquaintance), what percentage of the time do you figure the government worker is acting as though he was serving you as opposed to directing you to do as you're told?
The far left has been marching though our bureaucracy for 50 years, and had complete control of it for 30-40 years. And what have they used this control to achieve?
1 They created a campus sex police apparatus which violates the very statute they used to create it (Title IX) in addition to violating basic due process and free speech rights. This is in addition to wasting funding for 10-30 thousand unnecessary and unproductive staff positions.
2 They created a DEI apparatus to reinstate racial discrimination across education and employment.
3. Their "education" plan is to fund transexual stripper story time for kindergarteners so they can introduce sex discussions at inappropriate levels.
Maybe it's time for someone new.
what percentage of the time do you figure the government worker is acting as though he was serving you as opposed to directing you to do as you're told?
If you compare the attitude of the typical government employee to a 15th century aristocrat you won't see much difference. Government workers today are anointed by the Ivy League and the Democratic Party rather than god, but they share the same internalized beliefs of their right to rule and disdain for work as beneath their station. That's what Barack Obama was expressing when he told his acolytes to refuse the productive world and instead work for government and NGOs.
Outraged that my enemies are losing their jobs? Hmmmm. Nope.
I am an American person and I am not outraged.
Quit whining, you get what you deserve only 3 years and 11 months to go..
We're not whining, dumbshit. We're celebrating.
Since a lot of people in this country have lost jobs and homeswithin the last ten years to Covid regulations and cancel culture, there is a very large group that understands the real pain of real people in DC. But there's no sympathy because those DC people still have no sympathy for the people in the rest of the country whom they harmed with their policies. Moreover, the media have sprung to the defence of judges who are enabling waste, fraud and abuse. They've been trapped Remember how the Dems were saying back in November that their strategy would be to cause every initiative to be litigated. So the first Trump initiatives were related to immigration, waste/fraud/ abuse, and DEI. And, blammo, judges threw out protective injunctions around illegal immigration, waste/fraud/ abuse, and cancel culture. Not a good look, not strategic. And then DOGE is sort of fascinating. The idea that young people have strange instinctive fingers that can make computers obey them and that they have been hired by Elon Musk of SpaceX to use this power to find the way through to the centers of the government budget maze and to slay the dragons of waste and overreach one by one and no one can stop because Trump is backing the job - well, it's simply an unbeatable story. Because we all remember Trump being shot in the head and rising up to fight and not just to fight, but to win. And then to fight again, and cleverly, to fight using to use AI and algorithms ... Oh, this is a story for the ages.
And it's no use them saying that such and such a program slashed or such and such a saving made by DOGE is "just 1%" of the budget. If you slash 1% every day for 100 days you've saved the entire budget in three months. This what we should aim for and then run the country on the hidden sums and clawbacks DOGE finds.
"And it's no use them saying that such and such a program slashed or such and such a saving made by DOGE is "just 1%" of the budget."
If it's such a small amount, cutting it shouldn't be a problem.
Right?
Larry J said...
"Back in 1992, about half a million member of the military lost our jobs due to downsizing."
Our Reserve aircraft maintenance squadron lost half its manning. But hey, we'd won the Gulf War and the USSR had fallen apart, so obviously we'd never have to worry about it again. Don't need to study or prep for war no more, right?
Now, I'm not going to say that everyone in DC is useless. But I'm not going to say the majority are performing a useful service. If you can send most of 'em home as 'non-essential personnel' when Covid hit, if they can work from home for years - then how 'essential' are their jobs?
I can't imagine what your definition of a humble federal paycheck with benefits would be.
Not to mention the hours public versus private employees work. Little violin.
Nope. Not in the least. The people I know that have Government jobs, are lazy, do as little as they can, work as much overtime as they can before they retire so their retirement from taxpayers is higher than we make ourselves. Let them pick the crops and clean the toilets of Hollywood. I don't care. Win/win.
Remember Jeff Neely and the numerous GSA scandals?
Sarah Chambers at the CTU who said teachers shouldn't work in schools because of covid (which was already over) while she spent a luxury taxpayer-funded beach vacation in Puerto Rico?
How many of these employees okayed monies to the phony NGOs that funneled the paid Hamas rioters on college campuses last year?
These corrupt, aristocraric goverment parasites need to go pound sand. Preferably in Iran, which they love and support.
Enigma said...
"@Rusty: Then let yourself get r*ped again and again by the creepy evil Deep State...as happens generation after generation. Cleaning a swamp forces one to get into the muck and find actionable weaknesses. To be forewarned is to be forearmed."
Honest to Christ if every one were sucked into a gaping chasm in the ground I would not shed a tear. That's because I have never had a positive experience dealing with federal employees.
So. Fire every one and only hire back those that an prove they do something useful.
Every government worker who’s been fired could have accepted the very generous 8-month severance offer. That was a deal far better than most private sector workers get.
They didn’t. They were warned.
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