I worry a bit
The first month of the second Trump administration has certainly been momentous, hasn’t it?
Lots of sweeping financial cuts floated, lots of governmental layoffs, lots of action on immigration… but maybe we know to slow our roll a little.
These widespread government worker layoffs and firings have all the marks of the Good Idea Fairy. Taking the easy way out, let’s start by getting rid of anyone on a probationary status. Simple, clean, and neat. Except for one little detail – many of these fired folks have years of experience and are recently promoted or transferred to other positions where their experience can help. But being on a titular probationary status – they get the axe.
I get the distinct impression that orders are being drafted in broad language, probably to give firing managers wider discretion. But when cuts at the FAA knock out air traffic controllers we need? VA cuts take out crisis-intervention and counseling employees? Nuclear security specialists? Understaffed areas like national parks lose people, well, just because they are new?
Seems like lately I have heard many examples, as the cliche goes, of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And justifications like references to omelets and breaking eggs. That ain’t leadership, folks, that is managerial laziness. This is the kind of thinking that, say, would actually do what the doom forecasters predict – get rid of all fraud by getting rid of entire programs, like Social Security? on which millions rely.
Slow your roll, Elon – we’re all over your mission and applaud your intent.
But try to wield a surgical scalpel, and not a lumberjack’s axe.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Editorial
My opinion is if it was this easy for musk and crew to find people over 150 years old collecting social security, I would think there were others already on staff that could have ferreted this out as well. Were they going along to get along, told to keep quiet or getting some of that for themselves.
One of our last nuclear security specialists liked to wear women’s clothes and steal luggage.
Sometimes it’s just easier to do a gut rehab on a place and put in new instead of nickle and dime repairs.
This way they cannot blame it on the new guy. This is the shoddy work of those entrenched in the swamp. Get down to the actual perpetrators, fire them and then bring in the new crowd who just saw what happens to swamp dwellers.
The fact that you believe that there are people over 150 years old collecting social security is part of the problem, I think. Musk and his team don’t often understand the context of the data they’re looking at, and draw incorrect conclusions. It’d be like someone counting up the instances of ‘tanks’ in set of DOD documents and claiming it represents the number of M1 Abrams tanks… when in reality a count of the word would also includes water tanks, fuel tanks, etc.
You needn’t believe me, when even Trump’s newly appointed acting head of Social Security is like, “Yeah… not really.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/20/trumps-social-security-head-contradicts-claims-dead-recipients/79330447007/
This administration also claimed ‘tens of millions of people’ are fraudulently claiming social security benefits. Well, even at a low number of ‘tens’ -like 20- that would represent 20M out of the 69M collecting social security, for a nearly 30% fraud rate. Now, don’t get me wrong, if that’s happening, Trump and Musk just uncovered the greatest theft ever and I’ll give them a ton of credit…. but it doesn’t exactly pass the sniff test. To quote the late, great Carl Sagan: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We don’t have that now, just the word of people who are wrong on a regular basis.
After reading about some the the things usaid was funding, and watching how illegals were given the red carpet treatment compared to those in Hawaii, Eastern Tennessee and Southern California, I don’t doubt it’s entirely possible.
We are in agreement on much of what you said, LC. I don’t believe the numbers either. I also don’t think their is a whole lot of fraud in regular SS benefits. Some, yes. People are busted on the regular for cashing checks that were sent to dead relatives or ones that they were “caregivers” for. I am sure that most of the “fraud” comes from the SSI side of the house. War story alert…TINS… An ex Mrs Gun Bunny worked for a major lawer firm in the little big town back yonder. Now, we have all seen on TeeVee the lawer firms that push people to call them to get “benefits”. Her firm was doing this waaaay yonder before lawers could advertise on Tee Vee. Her department spent all day, everyday, processing “claims” for people with “disabilities” many of them for pure BS “disabilities”, including drug addiction. The firm had a 99% success rate in getting SSI for these deadbeats, many of whom had never paid a dime into SS. She’s bitch about it all the time, but the lawer firm was simply following the law and rules of the land. And once the “benefits” were started it was a lifetime benefit. The firm made their money off a % of the “back pay” owed to the claimant. The firm was getting filthy rich off of it. I saw this first hand for almost 10 years and in the thirty years since then no telling how many more have been added. Flip side of that is when I was medically retired from Ma Bell with a letter of medical disability, fully eligible for regular SS, I was denied disability payments. Could I have gone to this lawer firm (or any of the dozens in my AO that do this) and gotten the added SSI. Yep I coulda, would’ve taken 6-9 months but it would’ve happened. Did I do that. No, I didn’t. Should have I? We’ll never know that answer. Full disclosure…I’ve referred friends to this lawer firm that did have legitimate disabilities that had been denied by SS… Read more »
I think Dave has been reading too many left-wing rags who are exaggerating what’s going on. I understand getting outside our echo chamber, but the Left has gone crazy and they are lying their butts off trying to get Trump.
I am not worried in the least.
The three principles of libertarianism:
-Free Market Capitalism
-Small Gruberment
-Constitutional Rights
You can’t have a small government without firing people.
I say keep going forward at full steam.
Quick response – yes, I do read a wide spectrum of sites. Not a firm believer in not hearing all sides of a story, especially if it is controversial. YMMV.
The thing that concerns me is the see-saw. Last week Hegseth and Trump were on board with Congress increasing defense spending by $100B, to make up for shortages created by Biden giving away the store to support the the Ukraine War among other things. This week Hegseth said that DOD needs to be prepared for massive budget cuts.
Congress approved the bill either way but if Trump is going to go around trying to bully other countries then they we need to have a strong military. Walking softly and carrying a big stick is a strategy. Stomping around with bells on your shoes and yelling at people is also a strategy, but a less successful one.
Collateral Damage – Anytime you launch a massive attack your gonna get some collateral damage – The wrongs will be corrected in due time. Still on the fence with what they do to the VA. The new secretary says no cuts in benefits but the left says that is not the case. In todays media environment it is hard not to read some of the detractors. Even Military.Com had one on the VA secretary. I believe the purge was long overdue and there will be more to come. The hope is that the military and country get stronger and we stop the flow of money to foreign country’s. Fix our country first.
Sometimes those “wrongs” need to put food on the table.
Adjusting “Head Count” is always a tuff call. ‘specially when you’re looking at the sheer numbers of grubermint employees. Do you get rid of all the FNGs, or look for the ones that are entrenched on the gravy train? The former is the quickest way to show results, and the latter takes a lot more time to identify who needs to go. I’m sure that a goodly number of “career employees” are good folks that “earn their keep”. Just as there are a number that just kinda show up, fly under the radar and draw a paycheck. A semi good rule of thumb is that 20% of your workforce does 80% of the work. Tearing down an old building (house) and building back a new one is certainly cheaper and quicker than rehabbing the old one (ask me how I know), but the old structure can have “good bones” that the new one may not have. In personnel matters, another rule of thumb is the FNG may be more of an eager beaver to do a good job where as the person that’s been there for decades may be jaded, burned out, and only going thru the motions. Problem with getting rid of the old hands can be a “brain drain” and you lose too many that know how to do the job required. Again…a tuff call.
Personally, if the job was mine, I would’ve taken a slower, more surgical approach, sending in some stealthy “hatchet men (women/people)” to try and identify the dead weight that needed to go and promote qualified people into slots that the dead weight were in. BTDT.
YMMV
Hatchet men like these guys?
You ain’t wrong.
I support what DOGE is doing, but there has to be some check on power for Musk.
Musk works for Trump. Trump works for us.
He serves at the will of the president. That can change faster than the time it took me to write this post.
The CEO of Delta was asked, pushed really hard, to link the latest crash to Trump’s firing FAA workers. His response was perfect (paraphrased) “there are 50,000 workers at the FAA, firing 300 has no impact on concern for safety and security for the flying public”.
In other news – a women’s veteran group online is calling for female veterans that have been fired from the VA to share their stories. That particular poster/admin of the group claims more than 1/3 of all VA workers are veterans, therefore Trump hates veterans. Normally, that group’s posts get dozens of engagements in hours if not minutes. Two day later, not a single one.
Perhaps because it is not happening? Perhaps because as Hegseth said, they are starting at the top, addressing the redundancy and bloat and probationary workers? If someone is fired, under which category do they want to out themselves?
I’m more concerned about how many of those “poor performers” are on PIPs enacted do to the prior regime’s policies, and if they will be caught up in this. For this reason, I agree a scalpel would be preferred but that will certainly lead to lawsuits, “why was that one fired but this one was not”?
That would be a stretch since the latest Delta crash was in Canada. But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story.
I don’t have a good feeling with what’s going on right now
time will tell
They should learn to code.
Having spent all day wondering if I’m gong to get the email telling me I’m fired, I can attest to the idea these cuts are being done stupidly.
I’m in favor of cuts.
But where I grew up, leaders were expected to lead. That looked like “hmm, you aren’t measuring up. I’m firing you. But you, over there—I’m keeping you.” Instead we (the government we) are taking the expedient way of just cutting the new guys.
Upon my retirement, the army hired me as a civilian to teach others to X. In the Army I not only did X but was the boss of people who did X, spent two years teaching others to X and an additional two years evaluating other people who X. Then I spent several years influencing the doctrine of X. Like writing it in some cases. And throughout, I continued to provide leadership to those Xs.
I hired into a department filled with others who did X for the army at a minimal level and then taught it and got comfortable and retired to continue teaching it. The department is filled with guys who need to retire and are eligible to do so.
There is no question who is better qualified to teach from their lifetime of experiences and using the doctrine. And there are a couple new guys even more experienced than me. But we are on the hook for sacking because we are probationary. Meanwhile the department will lose us (the bench) and then lose the geezers who need to leave. And then hire a bunch of brand new guys with no experience.
That’s not how you manage personnel. That’s also not how you lead personnel.
Making decisions about people’s livelihoods is not supposed to be done by the easy button.
When a limb becomes gangrenous, it is too late for delicate surgery.
The rot has gone on so long, and spreadvso far, thst drastic reductions are needed.
Both sides claim to remove waste, fraud, and abuse, yet the pile just gets bigger and bigger.
Until out come the chainsaws and woodchippers and brush hogs. -Now- the coaster, fraud, and abuse are getting purged. Hard and fast.
No one is owed a government job. No government job is permanent, beyond a few specified as “lifetime” in the Constitution. The rest of us have to earn our place every day, and deal with unemployment when some nincompoops wreck a good and going firm.
Folks went along with the bad. This now has consequences. Will some good folks suffer? Yes. Might even be me.
So be it.
Worth it to leave a better USA for posterity.
Real estate in the metro area is about to see a large scale adjustment. Same with auto sales.
I left Montgomery County in August of 2000 and have been happy for it, ever since.