By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
The White House sent a memo to several federal agencies telling them to prepare to reorganize and fire high quantities of workers.
The memo is the latest in Trump’s ongoing war against what he calls bloated federal “woke” policies, overregulation, and wasteful spending. About 75,000 federal workers took a buyout to leave their position, and a few thousand have been fired so far.
“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public,” reads the memo from Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
OMB runs federal agencies for the White House. OPM acts like a human resources department for the federal government.
“Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens,” the memo continued.
Trump signed executive orders after taking office directing federal agencies to identify and eliminate wasteful spending. Agencies have until March 13 to prepare “agency reorganization plans.”
The memo says agencies should attempt to cut expenses, reduce its need for office space, and carry out a “significant reduction in the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions by eliminating positions that are not required.”
“Pursuant to the President’s direction, agencies should focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated while driving the highest-quality, most efficient delivery of their statutorily-required functions,” the memo said.
American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley, who leads the largest union of federal workers, blasted Trump after the news broke.
“Laying off potentially hundreds of thousands of federal workers will mean fewer services at higher costs for the American taxpayer,” Kelley said.
Kelley argued Americans will receive lower quality federal services with “no discernible savings for taxpayers.”
“This administration has targeted every single federal worker and does not seem to care how much turmoil they cause for either the employees or the American public,” she added. “The chaos is the point.”
Release the barnacles…….
Most of these positions were created during the last administration. Before that the government was running just fine. Their was no loss of services. So how is it that all of a sudden the world is going to come to an end if those positions disappeared? We never needed them before. Why do we need them now? The federal government isn’t a job provider. It was never meant to be. 3yrs ago you were damn lucky to find a federal permanent job. But in the last 2yrs they were hiring anyone and everyone. What changed?
O’Biden had to find a way to inflate the job numbers given what other things Joe and Barry were doing to destroy jobs everywhere else outside of government.
THAT is an excellent explanation. Thanks.
Not totally correct, but…
0bama added several hundred thousand Federal workers, and the last admin added tons more. So if we just go back to late 90s levels of staffing, I do not see the problem.
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Also, a lot of time in government offices is spent working inefficient processes on inefficient machines. Why is it I can renew my driver license or State ID card on line in about 10 minutes, but it takes months to get a Passport renewed? How many unnecessary steps (with labor hours) does renewing a passport have? Just one of millions of possible examples.
do you have a source for your statements? I see Clinton reducing the federal workforce. Bush did keep the numbers flat. Obama had an increase at first but not several hundred thousand. He reduced the workforce to where it was when he came into office by the end of his term. Trump and Biden grew the federal workforce in their terms. I don’t know what tons more are but maybe they are weighing employees. My source ‘https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/
For what its worth… in my 50 plus year career in the Construction Industry I’ve discovered a maxim, which states ” the more a project is associated with Federal funding , the more stupid the design and administration of the project gets”.
Oosik,
……and the more it costs.
This is what I voted for. Getting rid of the bloated federal bureaucracy.
Well Said Puk
Full steam ahead…….
Go for it. I found the federal agencies to be extremely lacking in responsiveness. Perhaps, if the bloat were reduced, those remaining would work on the agency’s core mission.
AI will do it for them.
Imagine who Alaska could go to pre-Sarah Palin state employees.
No one is immune from losing their job and government employees should not be exempt. In the private sector if a position is superfluous it would be eliminated. If an employee is not meeting expectations they might be let go or offered further training. The private sector is always evaluating return of employee investment. That is reality. Our government has grown exponentially annd beyond what taxpayers can afore and is in need of audit, evaluation and a serious reset. American citizens need to return to a bit more self sufficiency.
“This administration has targeted every single federal worker and does not seem to care how much turmoil they cause for either the employees or the American public,” she added.
Her name is Everett? Now I understand.
Obviously Kelley (the union) doesn’t want to lose money and that is what that statement was all about, not about people. We, as the people, need to tighten our belts and be efficient, not give away the farm to those who want a paycheck, but don’t want to work. Those who are crying about having to go the the office instead of working from home should be fired immediately. If they think they can find work elsewhere and work from home, they are foolish. The Federal Government has become so over bloated with people it isn’t funny. I commend President Trump, Elon Musk (DOGE) and I am waiting for our state to do the same. Our state is over bloated as well and will become more so unless we get the democrats out of office. They are spendthrifts and will spend and tax us to death and laugh all the way to the bank. Think Geissel.
You realize where all this “saved” money is going to go right?
It’s not gonna balance the budget- it’s going to go directly to the wealthiest of us …and that’s not the successful small business owner – it’s the mega wealthy. And what will we get for that?
What’s will it take for all in MAGA to question this administration?
I’m all in for less government waste and a leaner federal government- but let’s not just give this guy the benefit of the doubt at every single step.
After watching the Biden Administration for the last 4 years and Obama 8 years ago, we need to gut this sob. And Mr fish wealthy people create jobs and products. Most of them didn’t get wealthy sitting with their thumb up their —-.
Provide your receipt that the savings is going to the wealthy. OBTW, what is your base line for being wealthy? Bernie Sanders use to say “the millionaires and Billionaires”…now that he is a “millionaire” he simply makes reference to the “billionaires” as the wealthy. What will it take for YOU to questions the millionaire leftist democrats….we’re waiting
Like cancelling a $3.8 billion contract with Verizon and taking it to Musk’s Starlink. A move recently reported to be in the works.
“it’s going to go directly to the wealthiest of us”
Not seeing it.
Please take a few seconds and explain your logic behind that statement. How exactly are these cuts in spending going to go directly to the wealthiest of us?
The budget just voted on has over 4 trillion in tax cuts. Supposed cuts and savings 2 trillion – deficit increase 2 trillion. So there’s that. Technically “savings” will be equal to tax cuts- money in people’s hands.
30% of tax cut goes to people who report over $740,000 in annual income – the next 20% goes to those making over $350,000.
The last half goes to everyone else. The bottom 60% tax cut averages $400.
I suspect a few of those in the over $750k group are already pretty good at avoiding a lot of the taxes that hit W-2 earners.
Can we just say? There might be a better way to cut taxes? And yes- the people up there create a lot of jobs and are no doubt often great Americans- but I think a large number of them would agree with all of this
And there might be some value in actually attempting to balance our budget?
(See “center on budget and policy priorities”)
So… the people in the highest income brackets and the highest tax brackets will see a larger reduction than those with the lowest income and in the lowest tax brackets.
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In other words, it is not all going to the wealthiest. In fact, the average person is going to see a reduction in their taxes. And that amount across the nation will likely dwarf the amount the average “rich” person gets.
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Finally, comparing by dollar is lying with statistics. What is the tax cut as a percentage of adjusted gross income?
The plan is to do away with income tax entirely and return to a tariff system like the country originally had.
Trump needs to go to Juneau and clean the trash out
release the kraken
Alaskans voted for this. I know I did. But Democrats in the Legislature, and most of the media will tell us over and over that the world is ending. Federal employees and nonprofits will do everything they can to make all this difficult for working Alaskans and the private sector. They will try to curtail the cruise ship tourism industry by shutting down national parks, forest service visitor centers, etc. They will delay construction projects. They will tell us that veterans are dying, students are not learning, airplanes are crashing, BIA healthcare and Medicaid are ending, etc. etc. State and municipal workers in unions will make this as painful to us as possible.
Yeah, I get it. That said a Memo to the President and Elon- by far the largest expenditures and potential savings is to be found in “entitlements”, which is a really bad word for “handouts”.
Perhaps our greatest political/philosophical division is between those that were raised and believe in self-sufficiency and others that think the government is supposed to take care of them.
The issue here is these idiots have it backwards.
First, they offered a wasteful buyout, essentially paying anybody to quit their job and get 7 months of unearned pay.
Then they fired the youngest, brightest, most technologically adept AND cheapest of the employees. Only because they were probationary, and not related at all to what they can do to serve us.
And now, last among their priorities, is to focus on strategic reductions. Which any idiot would have done first, not last.
I’m not seeing youngest and brightest anybody wim. I’m seeing entitled assholes. We will see how entitled they are after 12 months unemployed. If they were young and bright they would be working in the private sector making 2 times the money.
Not entirely wrong, but the “wasteful buyout” is a single year expense that will reap multiple times is cost over the next several years. A business owner will pay a lot of money up front for a tool that will save them significantly more over the long run. They only way this is a wasteful buyout is if they hire on replacement workers.
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How do you know the fired individuals were the youngest, brightest, and most technologically adept? As to cheapest, that is likely correct. Then again, new employees are always the least productive. Until they learn the intricacies of a position, they will always take longer and have more mistakes than those with more experience.
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Finally…
Last among their priorities? What makes you think that? There is this concept of low hanging fruit, biggest bang for the buck, etc… Get the ball rolling with the easiest things to do first. Only an idiot would ignore those immediate benefits in order to focus on the most difficult of the tasks first.
Ak fish what the hell are you talking about.? We are $37 trillion in debt. That’s $265.000 per person every man woman wand child. Our entire country’s infrastructure is a disaster. There is NO spare money going anywhere but to try to neutralize this debt and all from mismanagement. By the time we get this debt paid down if it’s even possible we will all be dead from old age.
4.5 trillion of budget is tax cuts going forward.
Deficit will increase by over 2 trillion.
I would support money going to neutralize this debt- but that’s not what Trump administrations plan is.
Look at Trumps record on defects and his actual plan going forward. Like the independent numbers. You need a different republican for that. We all do.
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