Nuking The Federal Workforce
The people who safeguard our nuclear weapons and put out forest fires have been fired.
POLITICO (“‘Like a tornado hit’: Stunned federal workers take stock of mass layoffs — and brace for repercussions“):
Americans could soon start to feel the repercussions of the Trump administration’s decision to fire thousands of government workers — from public safety to health benefits and basic services that they have come to rely on.
Trump’s directive to slash thousands of jobs across agencies is leaving gaping holes in the government, with thousands of workers being laid off from the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs and multiple others.
At the U.S. Forest Service, where some 3,400 workers are slated to be cut, wildfire prevention will be curtailed as the West grapples with a destructive fire season that has destroyed millions of acres in California.
And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn’t spared: Almost half of the agency’s 2,800 probationary employees were cut while about 400 employees appeared to have taken the “buy-out” offer, meaning the agency responsible for protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other health hazards will lose about a tenth of its workforce. That’s on top of more than 2,000 probationary employees fired from the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent agency.
“Morale is tanked,” said a forest service official close to the situation — who, like many current and former government employees who spoke to POLITICO, was granted anonymity out of fear of retribution. “The public will see it this summer when campgrounds are shut down, trails aren’t maintained and bathrooms aren’t cleaned.”
Should the gutting of the federal government result in immediate negative consequences for the American people, the Trump administration could face political backlash from voters in Republican and Democratic states who suddenly find a host of services — including access to government websites or even benefits — vanish.
The Office of Personnel Management, which serves as the federal government’s human resources department, has been operated by associates of Elon Musk for weeks. The agency, which also laid off staff, sent out the so-called “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation notice to federal employees allowing those who opted in to resign their posts but be paid to not work through September.
A lawsuit filed by union officials representing federal workers temporarily halted the program, but a federal judge ruled the program could move forward, because the union officials didn’t have standing. The Trump administration then said no more federal employees could opt into the program — and the next day, the terminations of federal workers on probation resumed.
“We definitely cut more than probationary employees,” a person familiar with Office of Personnel Management firings said Friday. “We cut the entire communications department” and career employees too, the person added. In total, the person said as many as 200,000 civil service workers across the federal government that were in their probationary period as of this week could receive termination notices.
Bloomberg (“Dismissed Nuclear Bomb Specialists Recalled by Energy Department“):
The Energy Department is seeking to bring back nuclear energy specialists after abruptly telling hundreds of workers that their jobs were eliminated, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The employees, responsible for designing and maintaining the nation’s cache of nuclear weapons at the National Nuclear Safety Administration, were part of a larger wave of workers dismissed from the Energy Department, drawing alarm from national security experts. Between 300 and 400 NNSA workers were terminated, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The agency’s quick reversal was announced Friday in an all-staff meeting. The NNSA is seeking to recall the workers because they deal with sensitive national security secrets, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to talk about the matter, which is not public.
Those cuts are especially concerning because the positions typically require high-level security clearances and training that can take 18 months or longer, said Jill Hruby, who served as the NNSA administrator during the Biden administration.
“These people are likely never going to come back and work for the government,” Hruby said in a phone interview. “We’ve had a very active program requiring an increase to our staff so the indiscriminate layoffs of people will be really difficult for the coming years.”
The firings — part of a wave of terminations across the federal government this week spurred by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — underscore the chaos as the world’s richest man seeks to quickly overhaul the federal bureaucracy in Trump’s image. At the Small Business Administration earlier this week, some workers who were told they were being fired, received a second message telling them that they weren’t being terminated and that their jobs were safe — only to receive a third message telling them they were, in fact, out of a job.
AP (“Anger, chaos and confusion take hold as federal workers face mass layoffs“):
Workers across the country responded with anger and confusion Friday as they grappled with the Trump administration ‘s aggressive effort to shrink the size of the federal workforce by ordering agencies to lay off probationary employees who have yet to qualify for civil service protections.
While much of the administration’s attention was focused on disrupting bureaucracy in Washington, the broad-based effort to slash the government workforce was impacting a far wider swath of workers. As layoff notices were sent out agency by agency, federal employees from Michigan to Florida were left reeling from being told that their services were no longer needed.
In a sign of how chaotic the firings have been, some who received layoff notices had already accepted the administration’s deferred resignation offer, under which they were supposed to be paid until Sept. 30 if they agreed to quit, raising questions about whether others who signed the deal would nonetheless be fired. On Friday evening, the Office of Personnel Management, which serves as a human resources department for the federal government, acknowledged that some employees may have received termination notices in error and said the buyouts agreements would be honored.
“This has been slash and burn,” said Nicholas Detter, who had been working in Kansas as a natural resource specialist, helping farmers reduce soil and water erosion, until he was fired by email late Thursday night. He said there seemed to be little thought about how employees and the farmers and ranchers he helped would be impacted.
“None of this has been done thoughtfully or carefully,” he said.
[…]
On Thursday night, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees who had served for less than two years. That included researchers working on cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, said Thursday.
Dozens were fired from the Education Department, including special education specialists and student aid officials, according to a union that represents agency workers.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1,300 probationary employees — roughly one-tenth of the agency’s total workforce — are being forced out. The Atlanta-based agency’s leadership was notified of the decision Friday morning, according to a federal official who was at the meeting and was not authorized to discuss the orders and requested anonymity.
The new Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Friday that her agency had invited Musk’s DOGE team with “open arms” and that layoffs “will be forthcoming.”
“Clearly, it’s a new day,” Rollins said at the White House. “I think the American people spoke on November 5th, that they believe that government was too big.”
WSJ (“DOGE’s Federal Job Cuts Threaten Republican Districts Too“):
President Trump has Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency working to sharply cut the size and scope of the federal government. To do so, he will have to strike in both Democratic and Republican areas.
While Washington, D.C., and its surrounding suburbs are known for their concentration of government workers, the reality is that America’s 2.3 million federal employees (not including uniformed military or Postal Service workers) are scattered across the country. They are in Alabama’s Fifth Congressional District at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. They are in Kentucky’s Second Congressional District supporting agriculture and rural development. And they are in Kansas’ Second Congressional District guarding federal inmates.
More than half of the 100 congressional districts with the largest proportion of federal workers are held by the GOP, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. That could make cutting outside of Washington politically challenging since lawmakers traditionally have fought to protect federal jobs in their districts.
The Washington region—including the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia—is home to about one in five of the nation’s civilian federal employees, according to the Office of Personnel Management. This region, which includes the headquarters of the federal government, has been the area where conservatives have heavily focused their initial efforts to cut employees and bureaucracy.
The South
The South and Southeast is heavy on military installations and veterans, which require civilian support and Department of Veterans Affairs employees. Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District, for example, is home to Fort Sill and Tinker Air Force Base. Those bases are among the district’s largest employers. In Alabama, the 5th Congressional District is home to the Redstone Arsenal and other national security assets as well as NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Midwest and Northeast
This region has more federal workers who specialize in agriculture as well as its share of civilian workers associated with military installations. In Iowa, for example, a fifth of all federal civilian workers are employed by the Agriculture Department, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. Ohio’s 10th Congressional District is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the largest single-site employer in the state, according to the local representative.
The West and Beyond
Federal civilian workers employed by the Interior Department, which manages America’s vast natural and cultural resources, are more common in western states, as are those who work for the USDA and the Energy Department. In Wyoming, workers for the Interior Department represent roughly a quarter of civilian federal workers there. Alaska and Hawaii both have larger proportions of federal employees supporting military installations, as well as Veterans Affairs workers.
This seems rather problematic but Musk is a genius, so I’m sure there’s a well-crafted plan that I’m just not smart enough to understand.
Regardless, I have little confidence that Congress will intervene. In the first Trump administration, there were Republicans willing to stand up on occasion on matters of principle or constituent interest. The combination of Trump’s further reshaping the party in his image and Musk’s demonstrated ability to mobilize the mob against dissenters makes that very unlikely to happen this go-around.
Elmo probably also thinks the remaining workers are going to start working 100 hour weeks to make up for the missing employees because he thinks this is like silicon valley and is going to be surprised when they don’t
The impact of this utter screaming imbecility will echo down generations. From /r/fednews:
Firing the next generation of scientists from the US workforce
And a lot in the comments about what’s being lost. It’s both terrifying and depressing.
China, of course, stands to benefit greatly. Europe as well, as America’s lead in innovation dies on the vine.
Here in South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional district, one of the biggest employers is the Savannah River Site, which is under the direction of NNSA. This district voted for Trump. Payback is hell.
Neither Musk nor any of his minions nor any of Trump’s enablers seem to understand that once trust is lost, it’s really hard to get it back again. One of the attractions of a federal job was the ability to be professional, the lack of getting tangled up in politics, the ability to trust that no matter who was voted in to the office, we would be allowed to do our jobs.
That certainty is now gone. Even if the Democrats get back into power the next election and try to fix things the next time around, who is to say that the next time the Republicans get into power they won’t do the same slash-and-burning again?
Trust is gained in drops and lost by buckets, as the old saying states. We will have to plan our careers now with the risk that promises from the government mean nothing, because they will be immediately negated by some hare-brained DOGEite, and not protected by Congress. Which means we will have to demand much higher salaries—if we chose to take the risk at all. Many of us will be voting with our feet, saying “no thank you—you cannot be trusted.” We will move to the private sector, to other countries, to other research labs where our abilities are truely appreciated.
In a shocking twist, conservative trolls haven’t posted on these threads – because they know this is not just wrong but wildly shortsighted.
The next drug for any use developed in the private sector from discovery will be the first….. because private sector does not fund basic research. The risk is too great because there’s no ROI on it.
So if the US is supposed to be The Nation Of Technological Advantage, these moves are 110% antithetical to that goal.
What’s the true goal of Musk?
I keep thinking that someone is going to look around, realize what happened is incredibly stupid, and just say “let’s pretend the past n days never happened. It’s January 21 again.” But that’s not going to happen.
I’m not sure that the plutocrats realize that we aren’t Russia; we don’t have generations of being ruled by someone at the top who is unaccountable. People are going to wake up, and they’re going to be pissed. And some percentage of them are armed.
My wife is a pediatrician; she nearly had a panic attack last night. She’s an immigrant, so doesn’t have a birth certificate with her name on it, so under a proposed law, wouldn’t be able to vote. A large percentage of her clientele depend on Medicaid; if the proposed cuts happen, her job, and lots of surrounding jobs, won’t be sustainable.
There are a lot of public goods people take for granted that aren’t going to be there any more. Measles is back. We may well see children in iron lungs again.
I do not understand what these people think they’re doing. I’m just baffled. And angry, but at least with prior Republican administrations, they had some theory of the world they were trying to achieve. This is pure chaos for no reason at all.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting that the next steps are firing people who work in offices to protect minorities’ rights:
“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, including those that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace. 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.”
@Gavin: “What’s the true goal of Musk?”
I think turning the US into apartheid-era South Africa is a reasonable guess.
Chef’s kiss James.
@Gavin: A woman I dated briefly more than 20 years ago, who has been a Federal employee for some 20 years, is mostly supportive of this even though it’s negatively impacting her family. She wishes it were being done more surgically but honestly thinks it’s motivated at rooting out corruption, fraud, and abuse. I know lots of clearly intelligent people in the national security and law enforcement spaces who by and large support most of this. It baffles me but there’s just this huge sense that our institutions are broken and need to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
Elon Musk’s businesses have received at least $20 billion dollars from US taxpayers. Yet the right’s idea of cutting waste is making America less safe by attacking workers and businesses with reckless firings and aid freezes.
Putting Elon Musk in charge of cutting waste is like sending OJ to find the real killer.
Republicans are planning to gut poor peoples’ healthcare to give billionaires yet another tax cut. You’ll never hear conservatives float the idea of trying to claw back the nearly trillion dollars in PPP welfare doled out to rich politicians, celebrities, and corporations.
Socialism is fine when it’s for the 1%.
@Moosebreath: That little PayPal cabal — Elon Musk, David Sacks, Roelof Botha, Peter Thiel — all have roots in Apartheid S. Africa. The first three were born there, Thiel spent time there as a child there, and Musk’s mother’s parents were well known neo-Nazis.
The supremacy runs deep among these rightwing oligarchs who want to control the US.
@Grumpy realist: You are correct and the same logic applies to our global alliances. Trust built over decades is being squandered. The first Trump administration could have been explained away as an aberration. Electing him twice has now made us an unreliable partner.
It is tragic.
@James Joyner:
Because they think they are exempt. Full stop.
And, they might well be, but the surrounding chaos isn’t going to help. Musk and his merry band of coders are going to slash and burn whatever they want to, and at some point that will have an impact on LEOs and the intel community.
@James Joyner:
There is a lot of magical thinking going on.
But the notion that this is how things get fixed (and that there is going to be a rebuild) is delusional.
Perhaps the biggest, most painful irony of it all is that the only people who are truly interested in rebuilding are Democrats.
@James Joyner:
I think your acquaintance’s reaction is one of the more rational I’ve seen. We all would like more surgical approaches, but it’s not the nature of turnarounds. It guarantees nothing will get done.
I can’t take seriously the politicians screeching. Or those whose ox is being gored. And certainly not the reflexively anti-Trump or, and I repeat myself, the APs or Politicos of the world. If one read commentary here or in general one would think that but for Elon Musk cancer, nuclear fusion and world hunger would all be solved by these institutions next week. So why haven’t they been? What are they waiting for?
I’ll make a bet. One year from now you will hardly notice.
The /fednews subreddit is full of horror stories people losing their jobs, their health care. One woman lost her job just prior to taking time off to have a baby.
It’s hard to process… to understand. Surely, there are better ways to slim down the bureaucracy than nuking these agencies from orbit. And the cosmic unfairness of these institutions having to go through a lengthy and rigorous political process to get created only to get dismantled by executive fiat over a matter of weeks is just too much.
It’s sad. I don’t know why Americans would choose this path. I guess they would rather live in a third world country with tight borders then a prosperous one where an undocumented kid is in their child’s classroom or a trans woman is on girls volleyball team on the other side of the country.
Let it all burn, I guess. The more I care the more it hurts.
@Connor:
Man,have you considered investment banking? That analysis reveals a keen Prinicpal’s mind for acquiring companies and making them more profitable through slashing staff and breaking them up and selling the pieces for profit.
Plus the thinly disguised lack of empathy, lack of interest in listening to other’s expertise, strawmanning, and overall condescension would take you incredibly far in investment banking.
@Connor: Cancer is an incredibly complicated problem of the body which has no simple solution. We’re still trying to unravel the unholy mixture of hormone exposure, genetics, and environmental exposure which triggers the runaway growth and why the body can’t fix itself. Accusing the federal government of failure because cancer hasn’t been solved shows the mindset of someone either totally ignorant of the seriousness of the problem or someone arguing in bad faith. So which are you?
P.S. and if solving cancer is that easy, why hasn’t the private sector solved it already?
@Grumpy realist:
Why not both?
I mean who knows what Drew him to OTB. It’s clear he seems to enjoy Jack-ing off in public through edgelord posting about how wrong the rest of us are. 🙂
@Connor: Hop on over to the USAID post and defend that.
“We have found fraud and corruption! Gambling I tell you!” Any fund that is administering more than $5 will attract fraud and corruption. Battling that fraud and corruption is called “administration.” Telling me that multimillion or multibillion dollar funds are subject to fraud and corruption is a “water is wet” assertion.
@Grumpy realist:
This sad fact is why it is so important to inextricably link Trump to the Republican Party that has embraced his authoritarianism. “The GOP did that” needs to be the call for every awful thing that is coming – from inflation & market volatility to JD Vance being excoriated for his speeches in Europe to the degradation of government services due to lost expertise to the crowds booing the USA at a hockey game.
The country won’t be able to handle cycles of whiplash between extremist slash & burn and some kind of restoration to norms. Either we reach the quasi-equilibrium we had prior to the rise of Trump or slashed & burnt prevails as the new norm.
The GOP delenda est.
Tell me you know nothing about scientific research without telling me you know nothing about scientific research.
Also, The Economist has pointed out the major flaw in all of this “cutting”: it isn’t saving any money.
No surprise there really. The salary budget for the entire federal workforce is ~$293 billion, or roughly 4% of the federal budget.
Musk isn’t saving you any money. He’s just destroying things.
@Paine:
I contend that Americans didn’t choose this path. Nearly half of American voters voted directly against it. A significant percentage of the other half weren’t sold on this path, but rather an assortment of simple, painless solutions to whatever grieved them. We are in the Find Out part of FAFO. What we are seeing happening now needs to shown to those who bought the snake oil with clear reminders that it was the GOP that betrayed them.
@Steven L. Taylor:
He doesn’t have the horses for that. But he should be taunted and ridiculed. So thumbs up from me.
@Matt Bernius:
You stole my bit, bro! I got Guarneri in mine, clunkily, but I got it in. Don’t underestimate the difficulty of smoothly referencing a luthier in an unrelated conversation.
I win.
@Gavin: He’s there to undermine G7 and NATO to clear a pathway for the ascension of BRICS.
Scott, it never should have been a close election. In any functioning democracy 1/6/2021 should have been a disqualifying event. The voters failed. The institutions failed.
Apparently Trump wants to re-hire the nuclear safety workers Musk just canned.
I posted a link to the article in today’s free-for-all forum.
@James Joyner: There was a time, perhaps a century or so ago, that the idea that a man would need more than 2 pairs of pants would have seemed patently ridiculous. And then came the idea that a man with ONLY 2 pairs was ‘in need’.
What changed? Marketing. Humans are very proud, and arrogant creatures. Most of us cannot entertain the reality that many of “our” ideas are indeed suggestions from classes of people that hold the controls of what we ingest into our minds.
We are no different, in this sense, than the North Koreans who believe the sun rises and falls on Dear Leader and family.
For 40 years the (white conservative )American public has had unconscious suggestion that the Government is a bloated weight on American life–DESPITE LIVING IN THE MOST PROSPEROUS NATION IN HISTORY. While we laugh at the average NKorean’s failure to contrast their observations with what they’ve been told, we immediately exclude Americans from being part of the same phenomenon.
I can’t stress this enough–even though I know most people do not have the humility to hear or accept it: the average person is not able to resist the power of suggestion. One has to be aware of their emotions and curious as to why they feel certain emotions when taking in information. When one reads something and feels anger or cynicism–one should immediately have the same reaction as if they were in a crowd and felt a tug on their purse or wallet. They should check to see if someone is trying to steal their store of money instead of going about their journey as usual.
The common white person has been used James. It makes no sense to blame them since they could just have easily believed the Federal government has an account of waste within acceptable margins for a +2million person organization that adminstrates policy for 300 million American AND administrates America’s soft empire. They COULD be believing that they are getting this amazing value — for a steal. But they were not told that James, they were told the opposite. Now that bad things are happening to the parasitic people in Government, why does it surprise you that these people don’t take pause? I watched video of North Korean soldiers getting easily smoked on Ukrainian battlefields. Do you think they are reassessing? Nope–they are writing letters about the honor of fighting and dying for Dear Leader. Humans have to be trained to be introspective, it’s not innate. We get a little benefit of that in higher Academics which is why College graduates have a little higher resistance to simple propagandic suggestion. The higher end stuff you have to be educated in before you can recognize it. Regardless, you always have a measure of control if you examine and question your emotions reaction to information. Information does not have to scare or anger you to inform you–if it does–it does so for a reason. And not necessarily a reason for your benefit.
@Matt Bernius:
Don’t apply for a job that requires tough decisions, like turnarounds. You know, adult decisions.
We are not in Kansas anymore. Have you looked at the national debt and debt service? (In all the wailing and moaning I’ve read here, not one nod to the financial issue that confronts us. And could destroy us.) We have precious little room for the laments of the weak.
And at the risk of repeating myself. I’ve seen no solutions proffered about solving our existential financial issues. Just: “we have to spend the money; there is no other way. The world will end if we don’t. How many times have I heard this at poorly run organizations.
This, of course, is how we got to where we are.
Thank god we have people doing things now to deal with it, as admittedly painful as it might be.
Don’t confuse my points with any notion that it won’t be ugly, painful, or imprecise. We teed up this crisis/issue over many years. Now, we pay the price. But your points amount to “stick my head in the sand.” I just can’t bear reality. And I am meanie if I dare point out certain realities.
We just found out what happens with monetizing spending: a 20% price hike. MMT is a bizarre joke. We best get along with the task of reducing government before the currency is debauched or ceases to become the primary world currency. Thos costs will make the ones you cite pale in comparison.
@James Joyner:
FOX/GOP have spent decades and billions creating an alternate episteme, and they’ve been very successful. People in national security and law enforcement self select conservative. Motivated reasoning is powerful, and more intelligent people are actually better at it.
@Connor: “Don’t apply for a job that requires tough decisions, like turnarounds. You know, adult decisions.”
I try to tell myself there must be one way in which the world is better for having you in it, but I keep coming up blank. The sociopathic desire to inflict the maximum pain on everyone who isn’t you or the billionaires you worship disqualifies you from a place in any decent society. It certainly disqualifies you from a place in these discussions, and I heartily wish the next time you’re banned you’d just stay away from a place where you’re not wanted.
@Connor: we pay for it by raising taxes. And funding the IRS, at least until $1 more funding doesn’t result in less than $1 of returns.
I’ll note that the Republicans just put out a budget that funnels the theoretical savings from gutting the federal government and our common safety net not into defect reduction, but into tax cuts, so clearly it’s the defect that’s driving all of this.
@Grumpy realist:
@Matt Bernius:
Two things:
1) Cancer is not one disease, but a whole lot of diseases that tend to behave in similar ways. For all that, they cause different symptoms and progress at different rates. Some cancerous tumors grow so slowly, people tend to die of old age before they show any symptoms.
2) There has been a lot, and I mean a lot, of progress in cancer treatments in the past half century. It depends on the type of cancer and the stage it gets treated in. Here’s a link to a simple visualization. I won’t vouch for the accuracy*, but it is consistent to what I’ve gathered from multiple sources.
Cancer remains very serious and very deadly. Maybe it will always be like that. But it’s less deadly now than it was fifty years ago.
*I’m at work (it must be Saturday), and lack the time to go hunting for other sources.
@Jim X 32:
A few days ago I referenced Enchanted America, which is a couple of poli sci profs deep into psychology. They divide the world into “intuitionists” and “rationalists”, which ties back to Thinking, Fast and Slow which talks of System 1, unconscious, fast, intuitive thinking and System 2, conscious, slow, reasoning. And yes, there’s a solid correlation between education and “rationalist”. And FOX/GOP has gotten very good at exploiting “intuitionist” thinking.
Interesting side note: The authors of Enchanted America note that stress causes people to be more intuitive. Intuition tends to settle on comfortable answers, which relieve stress. They find a correlation with income, a relatively weak correlation. Lower income does lead to more of a tendency to “intuitionism”. But they came up with a measure of “financial anxiety”, which is pretty widespread in lower and middle income groups. When they corrected for financial anxiety, the effect of income disappeared.
This makes sense of the perception that “working class” whites are the MAGA base, when in fact it seems more middle class, with upper middle being the most rabid. Seem to be an awful lot of people with big boats in Trump boat parades. Rational thought leads to uncomfortable conclusions, like maybe I should sell the boat to pay off the credit card. Intuition, guided by FOX/GOP, concludes it’s all the “elites” fault.
Books like these help us understand how things work, but I almost hate to see them. I can picture a few hired gun PhDs at Heritage or AEI or Americans for Prosperity (sic) poring through them for insights to further refine their propaganda.
@wr:
Thank you for the kind words. And thank you for self identifying as someone completely intolerant of any view that does not support yours. Its a working definition, however, as immature, low self esteem etc.
And thank you for self identifying as someone who should never, ever be given a job requiring real tough human resource decisions. I could be wrong, but you don’t exhibit traits that lead me to other conclusions.
I wish you the best.
@Kevin:
I don’t know if you are aware, but federal tax revenues empirically reach a plateau at about 20%. After that, the people say no. And tax schemes ensue. Look it up; its an empirical fact. Your “solution” comes up empty. I guess you don’t know this, but its been known for years.
You don’t know where the taxes will go. Nor do I. It will be negotiated. But thank you for your rank speculation.
Not trying to be difficult. But could this website at least get some facts and well worn economic issues straight??
Or is “Trump sucks” just the objective?
Its OK. Feel good.
Trump sucks! Less filling! Tastes great!!
@Connor:
You mean the crisis that we have been hearing is existential for decades?
The crisis that magically does not guide Republican tax proposals when they hold the Presidency, but forms the basis for their obstructionism when they do not?
Sorry, but the people in charge at the moment have zero concept of actual economic pain. Vance, for all the legitimate difficulty in his family life, was hardly poor. But he wrote a memoir; used the economic pain of his extended family for his own gain.
Based on your own claims around here, you either don’t know economic pain or you have forgotten what it felt like.
Moreover, Cutting spending is not the only way to balance the budget. I would think that you would understand that, Mr. Economist.
Maybe you should call in a marker to Justice Thomas. Perhaps he can connect you to the White House so you can explain how their behavior on the international stage is likely to burn any goodwill we have left.
They seem intent on ensuring that the US gets banished to the kiddie table so the mature countries can formulate plans without having to worry about the demands of an arrogant, petulant teenager represented by ignorant man-children demanding tribute.
—
Regardless of whether MMT is correct or not, your economic models are faith-based, and empirically shown to be broken.
You are as credible about economics as Oral Roberts was about the Bible. But you both serve the same function, and neither of you should be regarded as anything but a self-serving charlatan who will manipulate sacred beliefs to your own ends.
Oh, and for all the hand-wringing and whining about left-biased academia, I’ve never noticed any of them target the economics departments at FSU or George Mason (among others). Ya know, the schools that exchanged academic freedom for dollars.
I don’t know whether you are a propagandist or their bitch–a pimp or a ho. But I know sex workers are far more honorable and respectable than you are. They don’t deny who they are. They may sell their bodies, but you sold your mind.
@Connor:
Fair point. And at the same time, since you are so concerned with the existential problem of debt, I’m sure you are against any extension of the Trump tax cuts as being fiscally irresponsible.
See for example: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/extend-trumps-2017-tax-cuts-republicans-seek-overlook-cost-2025-02-14/
@Connor:
1.) No, you provide the link. One who makes a claim accepts responsibility to provide evidence. I’m not surprised you would pull that, you are intellectually lazy. Why not be a lazy writer as well.
2.) if “tax schemes” exist, then the law should be enforced, and the schemers should be put in prison. The rule of law requires it.
The governments at all levels in the US spend a shit ton of money trying to enforce unenforceable laws to no societal benefit, at the expense of the rights of a large number of citizens.
But you seem to think we need to base our economic system around the preferences of a much smaller group of people?
That’s not a democracy. Nor does it even meet any definition of a republic you can provide. You know exactly what it is, but you are too weak to dismantle the straw house you have built up in your mind so you can admit it. Pathetic.
Oh, and this sort of ‘philosophy’ makes markets less free, not more. One of the basic foundations of the Enlghtenment is that government is necessary to protect rights. Unfettered =/= free.
Again, you are advocating for a more modern version of feudalism, and are too dishonest to admit it or too simple to recognize it.
I said it before and I will say it again. The reason you hate DEI is because you are scared of honest competition from those you claim are inferior.
@Kurtz:
Great minds I guess. I missed yours what post was the comment on?
And I am sure you did it better.
I don’t think DOGE understands efficiency.
@Connor: ” And thank you for self identifying as someone completely intolerant of any view that does not support yours”
Not “any view.” Just “I think my pet issue is so important that we should cause the maximum amount of people the maximum amount of pain, even if doing to doesn’t begin to address what I pretend to care about.”
@Matt Bernius:
Um, hang on. . . February 8th open thread.
Not sure I did it better. Remarkably similar, but I decided against the capitalization of the previous handles. Don’t remember what my reasoning was, I just know I thought about it.
“You’re fired” emails have started going out to NIH folks today. Yes, today.
@Connor:
This argument about debt and deficits is really an evasion
It may be sensible to reduce expenditure, in which case surely a full audit and report to Congress would be the correct way to proceed.
Not taking a fire-axe to the wiring.
In any case, if you wish to reduce the debt rapidly, rather than by the (more sensible, imho) route of write-down via inflation plus growth over time, you will need a surplus budget.
You are not going to get there by chopping a few programs.
The current deficit is c. $2 trillion. To deal with that, without touching mandatory spending (Medicare, Medicaid, social security) you would need to abolish ALL discretionary spending.
Including the ENTIRE defence budget.
In short, if you aren’t going to hack away at mandatory spending (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, pensions, Veterans Benefits etc) there is is only one option.
*wait for it*
Increase taxes.
Anything else is just fantasy politics.
And in this case, a fantasy that seems to play into the agendas of some rather silly tech-bro wannabe oligarchs.
And feeds chum to the dumb.
@Connor:
one would think that a master economist such as yourself would realize that the default world currency needs to be stable, and based in a country where the rule of law rules — people have used the USD because it is safe. Darting randomly into tariffs, firing large chunks of the government on a whim, hobbling our farmers*, threatening Canada and Greenland, and Panama**, and breeding a pandemic… not stability.
*: whether to have an underclass of non-people picking our fruit at sub-minimum wages or not is a good conversation to have, but rapid changes mean unintended side effects will also be rapid.
**: Panama should be getting ready to blow up the locks, and collapse the sides of the canal. It’s their best defense against an American foray into their sovereignty.
@Connor:
Phony nonsense from a dishonest, bootlicking fraud.
Trump administration wants to un-fire nuclear safety workers but can’t figure out how to reach them (NBC News)
I’ve held leadership roles in institutions, have had to cut personnel. These tough HR decisions are thoughtfully considered. Often agonized over, and executed with foresight and cautious planning.
That is not what’s happening in D.C. atm. Indiscriminately firing staffers — then scrambling to reverse irresponsible failures of due diligence — is not a sign of mindful, adult decision-making.
It’s a sign the Musk admin’s neofascist ideologues are incompetent, immature, reckless jackasses. Dangerously so.
Rightwing slaves make excuses for this lazy, impulsive stupidity — as you always blindly buttlick your owner Trump like obedient dogs — because y’all are just like the rapist: childish, amoral frauds incapable of telling the truth.
So when patriots decline to help you pretend this craziness deserves praise, that’s not intolerance of “any view” that’s different: they are specifically intolerant of the harmful stupidity of you lying MAGA jackasses. Just like one’s intolerance of pedophiles (Trump, Hastert, Gaetz, Trump’s buddy Epstein etc.) doesn’t mean one is appalled by all sexual attraction.
“Any” is not the problem. *You* are.
Hope that helps.
@Gustopher: of course, the complete fucking chaos of the current administration makes me feel safer — long term.
Americans love law and order, with a far greater emphasis on the order part. Authoritarianism has a lot to offer that mentality, except when it creates more problems than it solves.
It’s going to suck short term, particularly for minorities, but I think democracy will hold. Dismantling elections should take a few cycles, where people have to keep supporting the authoritarian regime.
Firing the people who watch over nukes or who clean our parks? Exposing our spies? Screwing up the IRS before tax return season? Massively inflationary policies along with plans that will trigger a recession? America is less orderly and less safe. And the authoritarians cannot get entrenched.
It’s going to suck in the meantime though.
That’s my guess anyway.
Efficiency isn’t just cost cutting.
Are they that stupid? God save us!
@de stijl:
In addition, in regard to critical systems, efficiency is NOT a good basis for judgement.
Resilience is.
Generally speaking, and all else put aside,the more efficient a system is, the less resilient it is.
That’s where the business mind fails regarding critical state/military functions.
For instance, naval warships were generally massively overmanned compared to merchant ships.
For the very good reason that you could continue to fight the ship with half the crew dead.
The pandemic indicated a good reason for having inefficiency in a health service: normally surplus capacity = ability to cope with an emergency.
@Grumpy realist: Recently, I’ve become persuaded that the Connors and Fortunes and others neither misunderstand the complexities (though they might be willfully ignorant, which I would say is different) nor are they arguing in bad faith. I think that their worldview is so dramatically different from mine that they may as well be living in an alternate universe. With completely different values, goals, aspirations, and beliefs in what is desirable. It may not be useful to try to reason with them. The don’t see reason through the same lens as we do.
As always, YMMV. But if what they are saying sounds like it comes from Bizarro World, it’s only because it does. Or that what you or I believe does. The triumph of constructed reality.
Maybe the people who are leaving have the right answer. To bad it’s not likely to work equally well for everyone. Alas, somebody has to lose. Zero-sum economics and all that.
@Connor: Why do you keep coming back here under new names? We all know who you are. “I’m connected”, “I’m an investor”, “I eat and sell companies for breakfast”.
It’s almost like you and Fortune are joined at the hip, but Fortune is the alter-ego.
I had gigs where the purpose was to create a drillable dashboard.
So, recreate reports that higher up folks find interesting. But make them interactive and consolidated. Why? Not my purview. Scope.
I worked with the folks that provided the current content. You use tools you have to provide content. Some of the were damn geniuses! Seriously, fam, you used Excel to do that? Fucking impressive. Access? JFC!
I was there, hired to eliminate them. To automate their activity as unnecessary, superfluous. I took pride in sharing knowledge. It wasn’t my job, but I was socially obligated. Share data analysis, database structure, dbm basics to them as we were documenting and commenting on code.
It is also basically primary to make sure their IT shop can accommodate. You need to make it intergrateable.
I once reduced 100% of an FTE’s entire monthly effort into a one button push and a thirty second wait for the results. B – awesome dude. In social recompense I taught him everything I could during. Pegged him as the documenting guy at each step so he had to learn and understand. In doing so, I tried my best to teach the right words where already had the concept down right. Smart cat.
Basically, I tried to get people new, higher paying jobs because I was ultimately tasked with eliminating their current ones. B got the job to manage the corporate dashboards. Well deserverd.
We hired one women onto our consulting firm on my recommendation because she was a genius.
I hope, I tried to improve the career prospects of employees my process improvements made redundant. I was getting pretty big money to improve efficiency. About 15% of that time was making sure that people who might be unemployed by my efforts (that I was obligated to do by contract) could get a better job. (Shh! Our secret.)
That step was important to me.
My job was to make the process more efficient. Education is part of that job.
The above sounds too braggy and self-congratulatory. I tried to not make it so, but my contractually obligated role was efficiency. I did my best to make sure impacted people got better roles.
@Jax: For an “investor,” he seems woefully clueless about cost-benefit analysis.
@just nutha:
I don’t understand this.
On one hand, I can respect the idea of not continuing an unproductive conversation. I’ve been avoiding those more in the last couple of weeks. On the other hand we are in the same universe, just thinking about it differently, and I think more Americans agree with me than you so why wouldn’t you want to understand us and possibly reexamine your thinking?
I’ve seen some people leave the site recently, and I can understand that too. I really don’t think comments from me, Connor, or other heterodox (!) commenters are a problem. The problem which I hate as much as anyone, is the angry tirade replies to me which dominate the remainder of a comment section. I sometimes fight back but even if I don’t, the momentum of the rage over a different viewpoint derails any conversation. So I don’t know if you’ll read this comment, but skipping comments is far better than freaking out over them.
@Connor:
One of the most tiresome tropes is the notion that Big Bad Businessmen are the true
Giants of Society.
@Connor:
Here’s why it is clear your are not the Business Big Brain you claim to be.
If your think the current DOGE actions will
have even a blip of an effect on the deficit or the debt you prove yourself to be innumerate.
Also: get a load of the GOP budget proposal and tell us all how serious your party is about combatting the deficit. If we are facing an “existential” crisis, then cutting taxes by $4.5 trillion is rather fool hearty, yes?
@Fortune:
Connor is not being “heterodox” in the least. He is spouting a very specific and well-trod orthodoxy about the national debt and deficit spending. I have heard it my entire adult life (and even used to believe it until it became clear that, in fact, tax cuts don’t lead to increased revenue and that the GOP clearly does not care about the debt nor deficits).