Department of Government Inefficiency?
It turns out that goverment workers served a useful purpose after all.
AP (“Trump administration rehires hundreds of federal employees laid off by DOGE“):
Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk’s cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work.
The General Services Administration has given the employees — who managed government workspaces — until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs — passed along to taxpayers — to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire.
“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”
Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said GSA has been in a “triage mode” for months. He said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast.
So we paid “hundreds” of people their full salary to stay home for half a year, broke the basic functions of the agency, racked up high costs as a result, and are now going to hire those so inclined back? That seems . . . I dunno . . . inefficient.
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It really is too bad this story won’t get the coverage it deserves. DOGE was always a faulty premise, and the way they went about their cuts was a clear indication that they had no idea WTF they were doing.
A REAL move to a more efficient process would involve analyzing work, and making proposals to consolidate jobs or improve processes through technology investments (note: that means we’d need to spend more money to spend less down the line). Basically, what President Clinton did in the 90s.
@Jen:
Of course, but that would have taken, dare I say, work. That of course interferes with golf.
@Sleeping Dog:
“That of course interferes with golf.”
It also interferes with the DOGE dudes’ primary mission, which seems to have been to obtain as much personal information on all Americans as possible and place it into Elon Musk’s hands.
It is all so very maddening.
When the dept. of government elimination rampage started, there was much mention in the editorial pages that the size of the federal workforce had increased little as compared to the size of the US population. Meaning several government agencies were very likely understaffed to begin with.
It would then be no surprise there was little to cut, if anything, and that any cuts could cripple agencies.
It’s a great example of something that might work in business, but not in government.
“Cut a bunch of things and see what hurts” is the sort of thing you see businesses doing sometimes. That’s their prerogative. Nobody should be guaranteed a job (as opposed to a basic income, which I support).
AND, if the primary mission is to provide a service, either directly to the people, or to other branches of the government, the “president” holds a fundamentally different relationship with those organizations.
Now, I am willing to accept that government bureaucracies are not great at reforming themselves and becoming more efficient. (But it’s not impossible. The CA DMV is hugely improved by embracing the internet. Still not perfect, though.)
But if you do this in slasher fashion, you create problems for the people and organizations you were created to serve.
And that’s the thing neither Trump nor Musk understand at all – service.
Weird how Pepper Prepper didn’t post on this particular topic. Especially given how much they sound like someone who claimed to be a noted captain of industry and defended what DOGE was doing as necessary.
BTW, this is before we get to all the costs of DOGE cuts (many of which have needed to be rolled back) and how bullshit their accounting has been:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-claims-slashing-costs-cbs-news-analysis/
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/12/trump-doge-contract-claims-savings-inflation-00498178
And we also get into the issue of how much the National Guard deployments may actually be to make up for DOGE cuts: https://people.com/national-guard-troops-picking-up-trash-dc-11799033
@Steven L. Taylor:
Especially for all the people within the Federal Government who accurately predicted that this would happen… because they actually understand what’s needed to keep the government running.
BTW, this will probably get worse as government service delivery further degrades as the BBB starts to actually be enacted.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Interesting, I didn’t know that you support that.
BTW, from the end of that article:
@Matt Bernius: IIRC, a whole bunch of us pointed that likelihood out when DOGE started this rampage.