The idea that government employment should be an iron rice bowl, a job for life, is historically a new one. For example, the military traditionally has had reductions in force after every war, with people who wanted to stay in either thrown out, or taking steep reductions in rank to stay in. The idea that we should feel sorry for people who are losing their jobs, a common occurrence in the private sector, because they work for the government strikes me as an example of the upside down thinking that has landed this country in thirty-six trillion dollars of debt.
Of course 60 Minutes couldn’t rely on just any jobless government bureaucrat:
However much you hate the “Mainstream Media”, you don’t hate them enough.
Last year when the company for which I work – “Neutrons ‘R Us” – did two downsizings, we lost valuable co-workers and friends, one of whom had been my boss and best friend in three different companies over the years. Obviously this was emotionally upsetting, and still is. I have been blessed by God that in 45+ years of working in nuclear energy, I have been unemployed for no longer than two weeks, but that’s only because God has watched over and cared for my family and me. However, that all said, I have no pity whatsoever for those liberal progressives who have suckled off the teat of the public treasury all their lives, never having worked in the private industry to make new wealth for and provide real service to people, and always having used their government positions to propagate an ideology that is anathama to every shred of moral decency. If God lets me, though I am 66 years old, I would like to work till I see the first reactor being made by my company get constructed, licensed, and put on the grid, generating low cost, clean, pollution-free electricity. As for Samantha Power, former head of USAID, and her kind of ideologues, my advice is what Donald implied, “Get a real job doing some good for people.”
Speechwriter for Powers? Really 60min? Do you think we’re stupid?
The so called mainstream media hasn’t been even TRYING… to give us actual honest reporting for so long -I don’t think they’re capable.
Incapable of reform they’re all going to need to be completely replaced. In the meantime X for awareness, online podcasts and blogs for understanding.
These are the same people who cheered when the government tried (succeeding in many cases!) to get countless people immediately fired for refusing to allow the government to inject experimental drugs into our bodies … drugs with known dangerous side effects, known ineffectiveness and known links to horrifically immoral medical procedures.
Cry me a river.
I’m sympathetic to people who lose their jobs, public and private sector alike. The trouble is that public agencies do not exist to employ people (bar in quite odd circumstances like the alphabet soup agencies during the Depression). They exist to perform services it is advisable be performed. If the service is not advisable to perform or the agency’s institutional culture is corrupt, closure of the agency is in the public interest. We have public agencies because the services they perform do not emerge naturally on the open market or we have them because there are complaints about the distributional consequences of relying on markets. You finance the agencies out of taxes. This in turn means lower purchasing power for others and fewer employment opportunities at the establishments they patronize. Those injuries to the common welfare are scattered and have no organized body of plaintiffs. The injury to public employees is necessary collateral damage.
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My grandfather was a federal employee from 1937 to 1956. The agency where he worked should have been shut down decades ago. (His pension was astonishingly modest, btw, and not indexed). My most impressive uncle was a federal employee from 1950 to 1964 and 1975 to 1992. He worked for agencies which (IMO) are advisable to have, though they may require an internal reformation. My brother was from 1979 to 1982 and has been since 1988 a federal employee. He is of an age to retire, his wife wants him to, and they can afford it. He works for an agency that (IMO) should continue with reduced staff and adjustments in its operation, though I haven’t anything to say about the work he does. If I’m not mistaken, Dale Price is or has been a federal employee as well. I’m certainly hoping he and his family land on their feet.
IMO, recruitment and promotion in the public sector should be regulated by examinations, with little in the way of antecedent credentials required. A hiring officer should have a short list from whom to choose and should not control the screening process that generated the short list. Ejecting a public employee should not be any more difficult than it is with a lumpy private corporation with a non-union workforce. If three persons in an employee’s chain of command sign a letter dismissing him, that should suffice. Two signatures if he’s near the top of a hierarchy. This could be followed by a set of post termination reviews during which he and his counsel could present a case that he was terminated for one of six or seven impermissible reasons. If the reviews found in his favor, he’d be due an indemnity and the matter would be turned over to an ombudsman to prepare a case to be argued in front of hearing examiners against those responsible for his dismissal. If the decision goes against them, they’re discharged and debarred from public employment for a period of six years. Public sector unions would function as mutual aid societies providing member services, but would not engage in collective bargaining. Compensation schedules for public employee should always be determined by formulae incorporated into statutory law.
Power should have written her own bloody speeches or relied on the occasional services of a public relations officer who has other work to do. And why was she doing all that chattering?
I worked 49 years and fired from one job, downsized and let go another time. Neither occurrence was planned or expected. That’s why you keep a savings account to fall back on. Sorry, this is life!
Speechwriter gave one last speech for USAID.
We shouldn’t worry. DC is the perfect place for speechwriters. In a town that couldn’t shut up on a bet, she’s sure to land on her feet.
As for any actual rank and file folks, generic jobs needed by any government office, I have some pity. However, it is limited because you knew, or should have known, what the organization you worked for does.
I live outside DC, and I know a few people who were affected by this, or might be. I have compassion for them. That being said, “their next paycheck” was coming from their grandkids.
I do worry about how these cuts are being made. There’s not much to be saved from federal salaries, and beneficial services will be affected as much as bad or ineffective ones. If we’re going to actually have an austerity policy, there are a lot more cuts coming, particularly to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as defense. I think we have to do this. But there are going to be a lot of people, particularly retirees, who twelve days ago knew where their next check would be coming from….
The speechwriter in question was a contractor who actually works for a consulting firm in DC.
and beneficial services will be affected as much as bad or ineffective ones.
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Show your work.
It would have been more accurate to say that good, bad, and ineffective programs are about as likely to be affected by cuts that don’t target programs, such as “fork in the road” departures and the release of staff in their probationary period. There’s been some targeting – the “fork” offer didn’t go to every agency, and some agencies are able to designate essential staff who are still in their probationary period. I hope that future cuts are more targeted.
it would have been more accurate to say that good, bad, and ineffective programs are about as likely to be affected by cuts that don’t target programs,
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Not hearing a basis for ‘about as likely’.
I can’t think of any reason that the quality of work done at an agency would affect the percentages who take the 8-month separation, or the percentages who are still under probation. Am I missing something?
“I can’t think of any reason that the quality of work done at an agency would affect the percentages who take the 8-month separation”
Not to speak for Art, but if you think about it, folks not on board with the Trump agenda will take the 8-month payoff. Folks totally on board with the Trump plan will happily stay. Raging leftist ideologues who want to do as much damage as possible from within the system will, unfortunately, also stay.
“… or the percentages who are still under probation.”
These are Biden admin hires. This would be a “better safe than sorry” playing of the percentages.
With so much corruption, I can’t see why you think the baby/bathwater ratio would approach 1:1? Why even assume forethought isn’t undertaken beforehand?
Based on my exposure, I haven’t heard a single person indicate that their decision to stay or go is related to their support or lack of support for the Trump agenda. They’re deciding based on retirement age, the ease of finding a new job, the length of their commute. There isn’t even a perception that these initial cuts (except for USAID and a few other targeted ones) are in line with or will promote the Trump agenda.
Probationary government hires are no more likely to be pro-Biden. If anything, younger people have been getting more conservative, and are less institutional and calcified in their thinking.
I don’t know if there’s been forethought, but it doesn’t matter if the net is thrown so broadly.
” I haven’t heard a single person indicate that their decision to stay or go is related to their support or lack of support for the Trump agenda.”
With all due respect, your observations are not reliable data. They stem from a biased point of view (as does anyone’s) … Your not having heard of them doesn’t begin to indicate that those individuals don’t exist. Common sense alone indicates that they do.
“Probationary government hires are no more likely to be pro-Biden.”
So, you think Biden hired a bunch of pro-life conservatives to man the department tasked with suing nuns for not providing abortions??
The number of HHS employees doubled under the Biden administration … Odds are every single new hire is unnecessary.
Trump admin lays out who exactly was cut at HHS in face of ‘Democrat hysteria’
There is no department of prosecuting nuns; there are departments of tens of thousands of staffers working on hundreds of projects, who may go their entire careers without working on anything remotely controversial or political.
I know I’m just some guy on the internet, but trust me, I know a lot of people in my area, and a lot of faithful Catholics who work for the government. Most of them are doing cartwheels that DEI is dead, but otherwise they could be of any politics, or no politics.
As for the link, it talked about exactly one person who stepped down, and nothing specific about who was let go, only some of the programs (or positions within programs) that weren’t affected.
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