[HN Gopher] 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says
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20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says
Author : djoldman
Score : 164 points
Date : 2025-02-05 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| manbart wrote:
| Doubt it... You'd be a fool to think you'd actually get the money
| derektank wrote:
| There's a lot of people that, due to their living situation,
| wouldn't be able to comply with the new executive order banning
| work from home. If the choice is between being fired either
| way, I can see many people opting to take the possibility of a
| severance while they find alternative work
| pixl97 wrote:
| Finding new work is going to be freaking great with rapidly
| dropping consumer confidence and the random ass tariff
| changes scaring the hell out of businesses.
| drawkward wrote:
| President Trusk is going to completely screw the economy.
| throwawayguy867 wrote:
| I'm in this situation. I was hired fully remote (and no
| office to "return" to), many states away from DC and no
| intention to move (not for an administration that would have
| no scruples about firing me at any point, for any reason).
|
| Since I'm fairly sure my goose is cooked either way, I am
| considering doing the deferred resignation thing just to get
| a few more dollars in my pocket before the inevitable comes.
| axus wrote:
| This is why the deadline is before the next paycheck :P
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| They are legally required to. It's already been appropriated by
| congress. The money is sitting there, budgeted for salaries,
| waiting for disperse.
| sitkack wrote:
| I don't know why you keep repeating this everywhere. It is
| not a sure thing. And legality has no bearing anymore.
| kgermino wrote:
| Nope, it's only budgeted through March 14th, noticeably
| before September 31st
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Who is going to enforce the law? Trump appointed judges? Even
| if the lawsuits are successful, our system depends on the
| Executive branch respecting the verdict.
|
| At least during his last term you had Republicans on both the
| state and federal levels who weren't sycophants. They've all
| died, retired or are now kissing the ring.
| neaden wrote:
| OK so? Do you think the president has to obey the laws? Will
| the FBI arrest him if they don't? What do you think the
| consequence will realistically be?
| justin66 wrote:
| The consequence of those people not being paid is that
| they'd sue the government as a class, win, and then be
| paid.
| tstrimple wrote:
| You've clearly not been paying any attention to what has
| happened to the judicial system in this country. Trump
| and Elon are both infamous for ripping people off and
| often getting away with it via the (compromised) court
| system.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-
| beats-500-million-se...
| ryandrake wrote:
| And even if they were to 1. find an uncompromised court,
| and 2. win a judgment to get paid... Who is ordered to
| pay them? The Treasury, which is under the control of...?
| You guessed it! The very people who do not intend to pay.
| rob74 wrote:
| The budget for USAID was also appropriated by Congress, but
| they still decided to freeze everything "pending review"
| (instead of at least reviewing while initially leaving things
| running), and then locked out domestic employees and recalled
| overseas employees - all without consulting Congress. So they
| obviously don't care one bit about what they are legally
| required to do. And why should they, as long as they have the
| supreme interpreters of laws firmly in their corner?
| drawkward wrote:
| This is a very naive comment, given the blatantly
| unconstitutional behavior that has happened in the last two
| weeks.
| Brybry wrote:
| Here's one of the template agreements: especially read #13.
| I'm not a lawyer but I would have serious concerns. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.scribd.com/embeds/823976608/content
| desumeku wrote:
| Is this where we're at now? Thinking that the new
| administration will just openly refuse to pay people's salaries
| as part of a formal deal?
| NickC25 wrote:
| Donald Trump is known for stiffing people. His administration
| will reflect his pettiness.
| eigart wrote:
| Yes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/.
| ..
|
| > Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the
| working class who will "protect your job." But a USA TODAY
| NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than
| 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades -- and a large
| number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels,
| who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.
|
| > In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200
| mechanic's liens -- filed by contractors and employees
| against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they
| were owed money for their work -- since the 1980s. The liens
| range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air
| conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from
| the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On
| just one project, Trump's Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City,
| records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission
| in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren't paid in
| full or on time, including workers who installed walls,
| chandeliers and plumbing.
|
| > In courtroom testimony, the manager of the general
| contractor for the Doral renovation admitted that a decision
| was made not to pay The Paint Spot because Trump "already
| paid enough." As the construction manager spoke, "Trump's
| trial attorneys visibly winced, began breathing heavily, and
| attempted to make eye contact" with the witness, the judge
| noted in his ruling.
| kgermino wrote:
| The offer mirrors Elon's offer to Twitter employees and many
| of them did not receive the money they were promised.
|
| Elon doesn't have the legal authority to make this offer
| today, it's poorly defined, and not a standard separation
| policy for federal employees. I'm not saying they won't be
| paid out, but I would't bet my livelihood on it
| neom wrote:
| I looked into this and I find it kinda confusing.
| https://employmentlawweekly.com/uncategorized/500-million-
| se... && https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/docume
| nt/McMilli...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Litigation is ongoing; the class action was dismissed on
| standing grounds.
|
| Individual cases are going through arbitration now
| instead. Some are winning: https://www.insurancejournal.c
| om/news/national/2024/09/24/79...
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >Thinking that the new administration will just openly refuse
| to pay people's salaries as part of a formal deal?
|
| The chief executive of the new administration is literally
| and actually widely known for doing that exact thing
| repeatedly, for decades and decades, up to and including
| screwing local municipalities who entered into binding legal
| agreements with him to incur expenses to be repaid in full as
| part of his campaign.
|
| This is not bias or propaganda it is fact.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Do you know who the President and his crony is? Have you seen
| Musk and Trump lie, repeatedly, about paying invoices and
| stiffing people? Have you seen Musk not pay his Twitter
| employees after he took over? Do you have a memory problem?
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, that is the most probable outcome.
| roughly wrote:
| All of that's handled by the treasury department payment
| systems, so as long as those are left alone, I'm sure it'll
| be fine.
| drawkward wrote:
| Why would you believe otherwise? Trump is notorious for
| nonpayment, and Elon doesn't exactly have a good record in
| that area w/r/t Twitter's severed employees. Sure,
| historically, you might claim something about the government
| meeting its obligations, but if the last two weeks have shown
| us anything, it is that Trump's/Musk's take is that nothing
| the government did before matters.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| What has the past actions of the administration shown us
| about trustworthy they are?
|
| This is not where _you_ were _now_. This is where you were
| four years ago.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Is this where we're at now? Thinking that the new
| administration will just openly refuse to pay people's
| salaries as part of a formal deal?
|
| We've never been not making up accusations from whole cloth.
| Cheeto Hitler is the worst person, so just think of the worst
| thing, and say that he's doing it or would do it if he has a
| chance. If he tries to shut something down, it's crucial for
| the country and the world. If he opens something up, it's
| actually treason and anybody involved should be blacklisted
| if not prosecuted. Also, if he does anything, it's the worst
| thing anyone has ever tried to do. If it's something that the
| left used to want, then it's now something that the "alt-
| left" wants, which is really the "alt-right," which is really
| just Putin.
| 9rx wrote:
| Of course, if they decide to not pay you it won't matter if you
| took this or tried to keep your job. So you may get a head
| start and turn your time to searching for a new job now. If
| they do end up following through with the buyout payments in
| the end, that is an added bonus.
| techapple wrote:
| Interesting they say their goal is 5-10% when normal attrition is
| six percent, that means essentially their goal is -6 to 4%
| csa wrote:
| > Interesting they say their goal is 5-10% when normal
| attrition is six percent, that means essentially their goal is
| -6 to 4%
|
| Basically, yes.
|
| If they had worked within the existing VSIP (voluntary
| separation) and VERA (early retirement) systems, maybe by
| tweaking things like max payouts, they could have almost
| guaranteed 10%+ by September, imho.
|
| The haphazard and non-standard way they've gone about it,
| however, makes me think that they will be at the low end of
| their range.
|
| The other possible explanations are:
|
| - they don't really intend to pay those who resign (e.g., via
| admin leave status and then having a furlough in March)
|
| - their ultimate goal is to have people _not_ take the deal so
| that they can just fire with impunity. Imho, this type of
| reduction will only work for folks on probation (who, imho, are
| the only ones who should actually consider taking the
| resignation offer).
| kevmo314 wrote:
| > The buyout offer entitles federal employees to stop working
| more or less immediately and continue to be paid through Sept.
| 30.
|
| > The federal workforce's normal attrition rate is about 6% a
| year, meaning some of those who've taken the buyout may have been
| planning to leave government service anyway.
|
| Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be
| planning on leaving...
| bilekas wrote:
| > Critics argue the offer is illegal, there's no real guarantee
| people will get paid out, and it's something Congress would
| need to authorize.
|
| Give then history of this particular admistration & business',
| I personally wouldn't be too confident in actually getting paid
| up to Sept.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Totally, all those Twitter people that never saw it...
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| Congress technically already authorized it when it approved
| the FY 2025 budget. That's why they are getting paid to
| September. That money was already approved and appropriated
| by congress, signed into law, and is the budget for that
| agency. They're spending that money how congress directed
| them to, but in a way congress likely never anticipated.
|
| I'm not a lawyer, but it seems totally legal. There is no
| requirement to take the money, and it's very hard to get
| fired from the federal government.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Congress technically already authorized it when it
| approved the FY 2025 budget. That's why they are getting
| paid to September. That money was already approved and
| appropriated by congress, signed into law, and is the
| budget for that agency. They're spending that money how
| congress directed them to, but in a way congress likely
| never anticipated.
|
| No money has been appropriated beyond March 14th.
|
| "the promise to pay employees beyond Mar. 14 is
| unauthorized. The Anti-Deficiency Act prohibits an agency
| from entering a contract 'before any appropriation is made
| unless authorized by law.' The deferred resignation program
| offers employees pay that is not currently appropriated.
| Current appropriations will expire on Mar. 14th and,
| therefore, agencies currently lack the legal authority to
| agree to pay employees beyond this date."
|
| Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/will-
| employees-who-resi...
| Jtsummers wrote:
| There was no FY 2025 budget. It's all CRs again, currently
| through 14 March.
| skovati wrote:
| Congress hasn't actually agreed on a FY2025 budget though
| right? We're just running on Continuing Resolutions
| currently. So the budget is actually subject to change when
| this CR runs out March 14th.
| dekhn wrote:
| Multiple people have pointed that you are factually
| incorrect, so probably best to stop repeating this in
| comments across the post.
| tstrimple wrote:
| In addition to what the others have stated regarding the
| 2025 budget being locked... Congress also authorized a lot
| of the things being ransacked right now like USAID. The
| rule of law seems to offer very little real protections
| here. So much of the US government is run on precedent and
| tradition and is incredibly vulnerable (as we're finding
| out) to folks who give zero fucks about precedent and
| tradition. Unfortunately the Democratic Party is still
| completely beholden to those precedents and traditions and
| have absolutely no clue how to handle opponents who don't.
| tdeck wrote:
| One key difference is that those businesses had to pay with
| Trump's money. While these employees will be paid with our
| money.
| aurareturn wrote:
| Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be
| planning on leaving...
|
| I'm guessing the vast majority who take the deal were already
| planning to leave? So we're wasting tax payer money giving them
| 8 months severance when it could have been 0.
| tombert wrote:
| I also suspect that there really isn't nearly as much "waste"
| here as Musk is alleging, so we are going to be forced to re-
| hire people, while still paying a ton of workers for 8 months
| of no work.
|
| This doesn't seem "efficient" to me, but "efficient" is a
| word that doesn't actually mean anything without context,
| which they don't provide.
| varsketiz wrote:
| Well, it depends on what goals Trump and Musk consider
| worthwhile. Just hypothetically, if they dont consider
| healthcare for all a worthwhile goal - possibly every
| dollar spent on Obamacare is waste from their perspective.
|
| I think they will find a lot of waste - question is if
| people in the USA will agree.
| tombert wrote:
| Well that's what I mean, "efficiency" is a term that
| doesn't mean anything in isolation, and because of that
| they can define it to mean whatever they want it to mean
| and declare victory as a result.
|
| I also think there might be some shady math going on;
| they're counting every canceled thing as "savings", but I
| don't think they're going to count the cost of rehiring
| the lost workers and redoing these contracts.
| Majromax wrote:
| > Well that's what I mean, "efficiency" is a term that
| doesn't mean anything in isolation, and because of that
| they can define it to mean whatever they want it to mean
| and declare victory as a result.
|
| Efficiency does have a sensible definition in isolation:
| an efficient system is one in which there are no more
| Pareto improvements. From the government perspective, you
| could consider this in terms of the cost/service
| frontier, and actions which move the government towards
| that frontier improve efficiency.
|
| However, I do agree with your practical concern that
| 'efficiency' is being used without regard at all for the
| services being delivered. This seems particularly likely
| since the government is attempting to eliminate whole
| departments or agencies by executive order, implying it
| gives no value to said services.
| tombert wrote:
| > Efficiency does have a sensible definition in
| isolation: an efficient system is one in which there are
| no more Pareto improvements. From the government
| perspective, you could consider this in terms of the
| cost/service frontier, and actions which move the
| government towards that frontier improve efficiency.
|
| I had to look up Pareto improvement, and I don't think
| that many systems exist where improvements are better in
| "every way" like the definition suggests.
|
| For example, most big tech companies will use something
| like Kubernetes (or an equivalent) to deploy multiple
| instances of a service and then load balance between
| them, even when none of them have reached full capacity.
|
| In one sense, this is "inefficient", in that we have
| computers sitting idle that could be doing work, but it's
| also efficient in another sense, which is to minimize
| downtime; if one of the computers or service crash, you
| won't experience much (or any) downtime because one of
| the replicas will handle requests.
|
| Someone could get rid of all the replicas and then claim
| victory in that they made things "more efficient" by
| reducing the cost, but that will come at the expense of
| possible downtime.
|
| Every system is different, and figuring out where on the
| spectrum you draw that line is rarely clear-cut, and
| there is almost always tradeoffs no matter what decision
| you make. Sometimes you can live with more downtime and
| it's better to cut the costs of the extra computers,
| sometimes downtime is not an option and you need a ton of
| redundancy.
|
| Humans are not computers, so it's not the best analogy in
| the world, but I think it still mostly holds; it looks
| like in a hand-wavey way they're just defining efficiency
| as "spending less money", but that really doesn't make
| any sense unless you can show that you're getting
| comparable results while spending less cash.
|
| I'm not saying that the government is perfect with
| spending money, obviously, and it's entirely possible
| that DOGE will find something that really should be
| eliminated. I'm just saying that it's rarely cut and dry,
| and it's very rare that cutting something is just a
| universal net improvement.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Pareto Efficiency should not be the be-all-end-all (and
| only one subset of "efficiency", so your definition is
| only useful in isolation to Pareto Efficient). It only
| guarantees nothing is worse off, but that's only a
| relative comparison. A result of 99% of the wealth goes
| to 1 individual and 1% of the wealth is with everyone
| else is Pareto Efficient but not a good world! Efficiency
| can also be used amorally, e.g., Death Camps are an
| efficient way to kill undesirables!
| ahi wrote:
| A lot of federal workers spend their time overseeing
| projects run by the private sector. Whether or not those
| projects are worth doing, funds have been appropriated
| and the private sector will get their day in court and
| get their funding. Now with no oversight from some
| useless bureaucrat (our project manager defending our
| interests).
| pixl97 wrote:
| Well you can be sure the billionaire aligned media will
| only tell the part of the story in their best interest,
| so who knows how much of the actual story will be told to
| any portion of the population.
| gramie wrote:
| Or even better, they can be brought back as contractors
| with vital skills and knowledge, at much higher cost!
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Re-hire people for what? They don't want a functioning
| government
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| OK. What do they want?
|
| Seriously, what do you claim they want?
|
| A fascist dictatorship? You still need a functioning
| government for that. (It doesn't function for the
| _people_ , but it still requires a large number of
| competent employees.)
|
| Anarchy? Mad Max? Everybody dies, so no government
| employees are needed?
|
| Takeover by Canada, Mexico, China, or Russia, so it
| becomes their problem?
|
| Or do you just claim that they're so stupid that they
| haven't thought past "Hur, let's, like, destroy the
| government, man"?
|
| Seriously, what do you actually claim that they actually
| _want_?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You act as if any of these people are logical. My best
| guess is that they want all of the power in the states
| and to privatize whatever is necessary for their cronies
| to profit from much like Putin did in Russia.
|
| Some of the Republicans just want to maintain power after
| Trump is gone.
|
| Trump is stupid and easily led and operates out of grift
| and animus. Musk is definitely going to get something out
| of this. Most likely federal contracts.
|
| Also a lot of Trump voters see him as their best defense
| to maintain their "way of life" and see the trends where
| the US is becoming a majority/minority, secular country.
| It was bad enough that this country let an "uppity Black"
| run the country for 8 years.
| verall wrote:
| > A fascist dictatorship? You still need a functioning
| government for that.
|
| Not really, just a functioning police force.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That functioning police force needs a functioning tax
| collection system to fund it, and a functioning civil
| society to pay for it. So you need enforcement of
| contracts, and a functioning financial system, and
| working roads, and all kinds of stuff. You can't just sit
| there and say "we've got the police, so none of the
| civilians can touch us" - not for long, anyway.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| If you look how every dictatorship works, they always
| make sure that the military and police force do well.
| That and they look the other way when police steal from
| people.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Sure they do. And to do that, they need a functioning
| society, at least functioning well enough to produce the
| things that the military and the police need and want.
| (And that means that the police can't steal _too much_
| from people.)
|
| A dictatorship can't be _just_ a thugocracy. It has to
| keep society running, perhaps not up to western
| capitalist standards, but at least above the point of
| collapse.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| How do you explain North Korea?
|
| And there is always prison labor that you can depend on.
| Especially with private prisons. Prison labor is already
| being used to fight wildfires in LA for instance and we
| have the highest incarceration rate in the world. That's
| cheap labor and another benefit it's all those "drug
| dealing thugs" anyway.
| tombert wrote:
| > Or do you just claim that they're so stupid that they
| haven't thought past "Hur, let's, like, destroy the
| government, man"?
|
| I don't think they've thought _much_ past that.
|
| We can look at the US Postal Service as a bit of a
| microcosm of this entire situation. Conservatives have
| been complaining about the Post Office my entire life,
| using that to restrict funding to it, which causes it to
| operate worse, then use that as justification to reduce
| funding to the Post Office, in a frustrating cycle.
| There's probably several reasons to why they do this, but
| I think the main one is that their goal is to replace it
| with private, for-profit "equivalents", like FedEx or UPS
| or DHL.
|
| I suspect that this might be a similar thing. They're
| wrecking the government by yanking away all funding,
| causing things to get worse, and then using that as proof
| that the government does things badly, so they can
| replace these things with for-profit versions that we
| contract out.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I think that's a legitimate question. I can float a
| possible explanation, though I can't come up with more
| than a lot of circumstantial evidence (anyone following
| this line of politics will be aware of all that).
|
| You mention Russia, and I think it's Russia, but you're
| wrong that it becomes their problem. It's their
| opportunity and their revenge for the Cold War and the
| collapse of the USSR.
|
| Trump's run by them, in some fashion, and doesn't really
| know anything about the systems he's dismantling. He's
| just being instructed where to do the most damage, and to
| run his mouth in any sort of way to provide
| justification. It doesn't matter if he's believed.
|
| All the stuff he's breaking is fundamental to American
| power, notably soft power exerted on the world, but also
| the R&D, the health system, the whole nine yards. Russia
| wishes all of that to be destroyed and not brought back.
| They would like it if the dollar is not the world's
| reserve currency. They'd like it if the world behaved as
| though Russian claims of the CIA lurking behind every
| tree overthrowing every government, were accurate and
| legitimate descriptions of what the USA really is.
|
| So that's Trump and the relatively few people firmly in
| his corner, 'Freedom Caucus' types who've been known to
| openly threaten their peers with Russian blackmail, and
| of course Russia itself which publically made an
| announcement about how they expected great payback from
| the help they'd given Trump in this election.
|
| Now, to Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their ilk. Unlike
| Trump, they are not completely dependent on Russia. In
| fact some of them like Musk actively collaborate with
| Russia as equals. There's a catch: Russia doesn't want to
| deal with equals and won't help people who are too
| powerful. So, Elon Musk is in some ways going rogue even
| in this context. He is probably trying to execute
| Russia's goal of ruining the US because he's imagining
| some kind of reinvention of society, and he probably
| believes he'll have Russia's help behind him as he
| transforms society into some godawful mess he'd like,
| perhaps like one from his childhood.
|
| He's likely to be horribly surprised to discover that he
| has not gained Russian trust, even though he's served
| them well. Trump is completely theirs, but Elon can't be
| trusted unless he's completely ruined, so what Elon wants
| is Bond-villain power, and no matter what happens he's
| not getting that fantasy fulfilled. This is his high
| point, while he is still doing the damage his allies
| need. Once that's done, he's on borrowed time.
|
| That's what they want. None of them expect it to be 'a
| functioning government' for various reasons.
| tombert wrote:
| I suspect that after all these cuts, they're going to
| realize that some of these things actually _are_ required
| in order for the American people not to complain too
| much.
|
| I just remember in Trump's first term, and this is
| something that has stuck with me since, was how he
| promised, on day one, to "repeal and replace" the
| Affordable Care Act, only for a few weeks after taking
| office saying "Nobody knew health care could be so
| complicated" [1]. It was funny, because pretty much
| _everyone_ but Donald Trump knew that healthcare could be
| extremely complicated. The ACA was not repealed, at least
| not completely, nor was it replaced.
|
| I think a similar thing might happen in a month or two;
| these departments are going to be cut, there will be lots
| of delays and complaints and eventually Trump will go out
| and say "No one knew that these government services were
| actually necessary". Then they might have to rehire a
| bunch of the people that left.
|
| That's my hope anyway.
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/politics/trump-health-
| care-co...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The only thing that saved the ACA was McCain who saved it
| as the last great act at the end of his life.
|
| All of the sensible, principled Republicans have died or
| retired. The modern Republican Party seem willing to go
| off the cliff with him.
|
| The tech sector is firmly in his pocket and all of the
| news media are owned by corporate giants who are
| literally bribing him to get what they want by "settling
| lawsuits".
|
| I always thought it was silly when people said they are
| leaving the country if $x wins even during the first
| Trump administration. But I've never seen anything like
| this or imagined the complete disregard for the law by
| either party before and I'm 50.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, I'll admit it's kind of wishful thinking on my end.
|
| My wife is a Mexican immigrant. She does have a green
| card, and our attorney has filed the paperwork for her
| citizenship about four months ago. She's _probably_ fine,
| but it 's scary. I have to keep an ear to the ground for
| the news, and figure out if we need to evacuate.
|
| Who the hell knows what is going to happen? If Trump
| signs some sort of order revoking all green cards, even
| if it gets struck down by some miracle, a lot of damage
| can still be done in the interim.
|
| We have our immigration attorney's phone number on speed
| dial. It's depressing that I have to do that, but I'm not
| sure what else I can do.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You're screwed.
|
| He's already made thousands of Venezuelans illegal
| immigrants that were here legally under temporary
| protection status and threaten deportation and tried to
| revoke birthright citizenship.
|
| He's definitely going to do his best to keep people out
| from "shit hole countries that only send rapists and
| murderers" (if it isn't clear, I don't hold that opinion)
| tombert wrote:
| Well, if any EU companies want to sponsor a work visa for
| me and my wife, I am certainly open to it.
|
| As it stands I don't really know what I'm supposed to do
| other than that.
| crooked-v wrote:
| If worst comes to worst and your personal situations
| allow it, there's always places like Malta that welcome
| anyone in who has sufficient income.
| ahi wrote:
| I'm skeptical. Most of these federal jobs either
| marginally improve millions of lives or are completely
| critical for 10k Americans. The former is so spread out
| it will be hard to connect the dots; chronic stress of
| wondering why is everything sus these days. The latter
| mostly serves the already disenfranchised, e.g. adult
| daycare cuts.
| rtkwe wrote:
| A large part of the GOP playbook around their goal of
| smaller government is to make the government work worse
| then use that to argue government can't do the job and it
| shouldn't do it or it needs to be privatized. "We can't
| give immigrants their due process before deporting them
| that takes forever! (We also refuse to expand the number of
| judges serving those cases)" "Public schools are horrible
| and don't work! (We've been choking their budget for
| decades)" etc etc.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I would not leave. Getting into the federal system was hard
| before, it's going to be near impossible now. For people who
| are not AI experts, engineers, doctors, etc. the federal
| government offers pay and benefits unparalleled to anything
| those same people would find in the private sector. Not to
| mention the job protections that really don't exist in any
| other private sector American company.
| selectodude wrote:
| What job protections? They're predicated on the president
| following the constitution. We're long, long past that.
| pkulak wrote:
| Yes... the job protections.
| tombert wrote:
| I feel like that used to be true, but I'm not sure it's been
| true for the last ~decade or so. My mom works for the federal
| government as an attorney. She likes her job, but she has
| mentioned to me that there are just as many layoff rounds, if
| not more, as you'd get in the private sector.
|
| Moreover, there are a lot of things that are kind of
| bullshit; her office refused to provide paper towels or soap
| in the kitchen, so she had to spend her own money and bring
| them in herself.
|
| Are soap or paper towels expensive? No, it's not beyond her
| means, but it's not like most private sector jobs "brag"
| about having paper towels near the sink, it's usually not
| considered a "perk".
|
| ETA:
|
| Just a note, these complaints go back to even the Obama
| years, I think.
| drewda wrote:
| Here's a detailed look at how total compensation compares
| between the private sector and federal positions by education
| level: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235
|
| The key takeaways:
|
| - staffers with high school or some college make more, on
| average, working for federal gov't, primarily due to the
| benefits. But it's an exaggeration to describe the difference
| as "unparalleled"
|
| - comp is roughly equivalent for holders of bachelor's
|
| - comp for holders of professional degrees or doctorates (JD,
| MD, MBA, PhD) is significantly lower on average for federal
| jobs
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You act as if the next step isn't being fired and that the
| federal government won't slash benefits.
| francisofascii wrote:
| If you wanted to hit a "years of service" number, this may not
| count towards that.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| >> The buyout offer entitles federal employees to stop working
| more or less immediately and continue to be paid through Sept.
| 30.
|
| Except it doesn't entitle them to stop working. OPM cannot tell
| workers to stop working or put them on leave. It's up to their
| agency to determine if they will keep them working or put them
| on leave. The framing by whoever is in OPM is disingenuous.
| normalaccess wrote:
| When you put it that way it does seem like a win win for both
| sides. The Trump haters get almost a year of paid vacation and
| the administration gets less internal drama.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Pretty standard government worker deal. I am not crying too
| many tears over government workers facing just a smidge of the
| uncertainty that everyone else has been living with since
| Covid. Your salary/promotions/healthcare/retirement are no
| longer guaranteed by just doing enough to not get fired (which
| is almost impossible)? Boo hoo, Welcome to the reality that
| everyone else in the world works in. In tech we are scrabbling
| for jobs, navigating layoffs, and fighting tooth and nail to
| prove we create value and justify our salaries. I don't think
| it is cruel to request "public servants" do the same.
|
| 8 months paid would be an insane deal for private industry
| layoffs. We all just get a sad email and some well wishes.
| afavour wrote:
| Most of us in tech also get paid far, far more than anyone in
| the public sector. It's always been my perception that the
| reliability of the job is a perk that makes up for the subpar
| salaries. I don't think public sector workers are as spoiled
| as you make out.
| psychlops wrote:
| How does your job security and pension compare?
| Philpax wrote:
| You should aspire to greater things instead of dragging
| others down.
| giarc wrote:
| I heard that on average 10,000 employees retire every month. So
| if you had planned to retire in Jan/Feb/Mar, you might as well
| take the buy out and gain a few extra months of basically "free
| pay". That is assuming that it actually arrives in your bank
| account.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
|
| This is why you should ignore any absolute numbers about people
| taking the buyout.
|
| You want to look at the relative percentage taking the deal
| compared to their normal turnover.
|
| If the number of people taking the "buyout" isn't significantly
| higher than their normal turnover, that's a sign that they're
| just overpaying people who were already leaving.
| bmitc wrote:
| So in addition to the mockery, they're paying people to do what
| they were already going to do for free? Small government and
| low spending indeed ...
| francisofascii wrote:
| 20K represents "about 1% of the federal workforce"
| sampton wrote:
| 20k represents 1%. The target is 5-10%. The messaging is 100-200k
| federal layoff is coming.
| varsketiz wrote:
| Since the turover rate per year is 6%, implemented hiring
| freeze would yield theese results.
| pixl97 wrote:
| 1) You're assuming these leadership clowns are that smart
|
| 2) They are targeting particular employees more.
| sampton wrote:
| Does the 6% number includes churn between departments? Unless
| ICE can absorb 100k+ headcount the number will be much lower
| this year.
| bhouston wrote:
| Which is exactly what Canadian government has been doing for
| a while now after the service ballooned during the pandemic,
| e.g.: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPublicServants/comments/
| 1g9qy...
| s3r3nity wrote:
| These tend to work through in stages: fastest ones to accept
| were already looking, and next up are those that are on the
| fence, and so on...
|
| The 8-month buyout offer is significantly better than the one-
| time offer from Clinton in the 90's [1], even adjusting for
| inflation, so I'd expect that there's a large group of
| individuals & families that are just taking the time to
| evaluate the decision.
|
| [https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-
| buyo...]
| leoqa wrote:
| Interesting precedent thanks for sharing.
| tootie wrote:
| They have separately promised $1T or even $2T in cuts and and
| laying off 200K won't even come close. Not to mention they are
| offering these as blanket buyouts seemingly without regard for
| job function so they will inevitably end up needing to hire
| back some percentage of roles unless (as I suspect) they intend
| to just stop doing a bunch of critical work.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Related:
|
| "Will Employees Who Resign Have a Remedy?"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950301
| mateus1 wrote:
| These topics are being routinely taken down by the mod team.
| drawkward wrote:
| HN is sufficiently MAGA as to not require bad faith actions
| by dang.
| simple10 wrote:
| It's interesting that annual attrition rate is 6% according to
| the article. I hadn't considered that before. The buyouts could
| end up costing more than they save if the only people who take it
| were the ones already planning on leaving.
|
| But maybe the argument is if enough people take it before the
| March budget deadline, then each departments budget can be
| proportionately reduced in the next cycle.
|
| Does anyone know the math and politics on this? Why didn't DOGE
| just put hiring freezes in place and wait for people to leave?
| Honest question. I'm not looking to bait anyone into mud slinging
| about Trump and Elon.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| short answer - takes too long
| biofox wrote:
| Without wanting to mud sling, this has not gone through the
| usual oversight and review committees that something like this
| usually would, so I suspect it hasn't been planned out and
| costed (much like other recent policy announcements). When
| "move fast and break things" meets public finance.
| wbl wrote:
| I'm going to try not to mud sling but looking at the managerial
| history of the people involved does not make taking erratic
| pointless action a total surprise.
| dboreham wrote:
| Not sure if this is mud but you're analyzing this as if it
| should make sense. It doesn't need to and doesn't because it's
| a performance art piece.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Move fast and break things mentality over the boring strategy
| of letting a hiring freeze slowly work. It's also
| psychologically challenging the people that stay to "admit"
| they can't get a job in the private sector, which helps the
| Elon narrative. They want to make government employees feel
| bad.
|
| Plus these people are unlikely to ever get paid. This is all
| operating outside of congress. If the institutions survive at
| all this could become a mess of expensive lawsuits and
| settlements. But I suppose their intention is to permanently
| cut Congress out of the picture.
| sitkack wrote:
| The goal is burn down the federal government, it doesn't
| really matter to them what happens. Expensive lawsuits and
| settlements, sign me up! It isn't their money.
| jollyllama wrote:
| > It's also psychologically challenging the people that stay
| to "admit" they can't get a job in the private sector, which
| helps the Elon narrative. They want to make government
| employees feel bad.
|
| That's probably their angle but tbh I'd think more of the
| tenure of someone who turned down money to keep their job
| than one who quit it for a one time payment.
| jhp123 wrote:
| I think the messaging was intended to create a psychological
| effect rather than a budgetary one. By voluntarily giving up a
| benefit to stay with the federal government post-Musk takeover,
| employees may feel more committed to the new regime. IIRC
| Zappos used to offer people a payout to leave directly after
| hiring them, it was a similar signal of commitment.
| simple10 wrote:
| Makes sense. Similar to Wordpress buyout drama. Realign the
| staff under new marching orders.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I think it was both, but they didn't realize:
|
| 1. Under RIFs, close to half of the civil service will get a
| better severance than this offer. So any thinking person
| would wait for a RIF.
|
| 2. Under VERA, people will lose this "severance" but get
| access to their pensions years earlier. Since VERA only
| applies if you have 20+ years (25 if under 50) that's 20+% of
| their current high-3 for the rest of their lives, sets a nice
| baseline income. A WG employee who started at a depot at age
| 18 could collect their pension starting at age 43 and get
| $20-30k/year for the rest of their life and still be young
| enough to get another job and keep earning until 60 and
| retire a second time.
|
| 3. A substantial number of federal employees are already
| working on-site (not necessarily in offices) in areas where
| there are not a ton of other jobs. Ask a civil servant at
| China Lake to resign, they have to move too, there are few
| jobs in the area besides that base.
|
| 4. Many federal employees are federal employees because they
| care about the mission. They'd rather keep doing what's been
| asked of them to keep things like critical infrastructure
| operating than go home and let things fall apart because no
| one is doing the work.
| ahi wrote:
| The problem is that the new regime appears to be more
| interested in amputation than footwear for most of these
| depts/agencies. Those less committed to their mission of
| walking and running will leave. Those left behind will be the
| more intransigent veteran operators, "somebody has to keep
| everyone's feet attached".
| Shank wrote:
| I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is
| simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to
| pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best.
| Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14,
| 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering
| something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets
| dropped due to budget negotiations.
|
| It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but
| obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of
| a deal.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Have the exact payment details been released? Because I
| understood it as "you will get paid same as always through
| September, you just don't have to show up to work". Maybe I'm
| misunderstanding, but that doesn't sound like a "buyout" in the
| traditional sense.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It is not a buyout. OPM has said that agencies can opt to put
| people who choose this on administrative leave (but they
| don't have to, they can keep the people working). So the
| effect is what the name is "deferred resignation", OPM pinky
| swears that you won't be cut before 30 September in a RIF or
| other actions if you take this offer and you'll get your
| biweekly pay as normal.
| 656556h56h65h wrote:
| Well it is a good thing Trump and co are so well known for
| paying what they owe. These people are dumb if they take the
| offer. Job market has been cooked for 3 years already, these
| people will not fair well.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Correct. Donald Trump has had a reputation for stiffing
| people for close to 50 years now.
|
| These workers will resign, and won't get paid what they were
| told they'd get paid.
|
| This is a man who is so cheap, so petty, he held up billions
| of dollars worth of economic relief during COVID just so he
| could have his signature on a bunch of stimulus checks.
| csa wrote:
| > this was never authorized by congress,
|
| Correct.
|
| > so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it
| exists at best
|
| Incorrect.
|
| The money is _budgeted_ through September (end of federal FY).
| Things are currently only _funded_ through March 15 (CRs and
| whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if
| there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are
| paid. Note that there will probably be riots if lengthy
| furloughed folks don't get back pay.
|
| > So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something
| closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due
| to budget negotiations.
|
| Correct.
|
| The speculation is that:
|
| 1. The "resign" folks will be put on admin leave in March 1 (or
| earlier).
|
| 2. Budget impasse in mid-March. Furlough ensues.
|
| 3. Folks on admin leave just end up getting cut, or not paid,
| and/or not back paid due to peculiarities of admin leave.
|
| > It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package,
| but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that
| great of a deal.
|
| I think it's above average, but not "incredibly generous".
| People get $25k VSIP and VERA offers all the time. This may not
| seem like a lot, but many fed employees live in low COL areas
| and/or earn relatively low wages.
|
| The best parts of the package, assuming they deliver, would be
| things like insurance (for non-retirees) and possibly TSP
| contributions and matching (if those are allowed).
|
| If they want the numbers they say that they want, I think
| something near this level of package is necessary.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave",
| does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for
| Congress? And who in a Republican Congress will want to do
| that anyway? They're mostly on board for this bullshit aren't
| they?
| csa wrote:
| > If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave",
| does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for
| Congress?
|
| It would be Trump/Elon.
|
| Someone told me the details of how they could not pay
| people. It's administrivia. It will go unnoticed by most
| just like how the twitter folks not getting paid went
| unnoticed by most.
|
| > And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that
| anyway?
|
| They give zero fucks about fucking over feds or former
| Feds, as they are (allegedly) all lazy and useless.
|
| The end result will be less money spent (trivial, but
| still) and a lower head count moving forward.
|
| The Republican rhetoric on this largely doesn't jibe with
| reality.
|
| Yes, there are underemployed people in the federal
| government (as exist in any large org). Identifying that
| slack and cutting it is not something that can be done with
| laser shots from space. They can only be done from the
| ground, imho. The current way they are doing things is
| going to end with a lot of unpleasant unintended
| consequences.
| sitkack wrote:
| Nothing looks bad to them, so it doesn't matter. Looking
| bad isn't a deterrent any more.
| normalaccess wrote:
| I don't think that's ever really been a problem for
| Trump. Everyone I talk to who supports him expects him to
| be a hail-mary grenade thrown into DC--a big middle
| finger to the powers that be. They feel completely
| disenfranchised and want a shake-up.
|
| Amazingly, so far, it hasn't _hurt_ his approval numbers.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The numbers are irrelevant. It is a second term
| presidency. What matters are the numbers for those facing
| reelection in less than a couple years. Even the burn
| down crowed don't want to remain on a wagon heading for a
| cliff in four years.
| afavour wrote:
| > Amazingly, so far, it hasn't hurt his approval numbers.
|
| He started with (I think) the lowest approval numbers in
| modern records so to an extent it was probably priced in
| from the outset.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Nothing ever looks bad for Trump. His followers will always
| make excuses for him. The latest is that Trump campaigned
| on "America First" and isolationism and now MAGAs are
| cheering his ideas of using American troops to take over
| the Gaza Strip and making it a tourist destination.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all
| institutions of power are held by Republicans?
|
| Non-American here with only a Mickey Mouse understanding of
| US mechanics of power.
| csa wrote:
| > Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all
| institutions of power are held by Republicans?
|
| I'm not an expert on this topic, so please take these
| comments with a grain of salt:
|
| 1. The simplest way a budget impasse could start is with
| internal feuding within the Republican Party. Some
| Republicans are very aggressive deficit hawks all the time.
| Some Republicans are only "deficit hawks" when a Democrat
| is president, but they spend freely when a Republican is
| president. Note that almost all of the largest budget
| deficits since 1990 have been under Republican
| administrations (Covid years under Trump and Biden were
| wonky and should probably be asterisked). So the pork-
| seeking Republicans and the deficit hawk Republicans can
| get into a stand off about what the budget should be.
|
| 2. Even if Congress is on the same page, Trump can choose
| not to sign the budget if he doesn't get his pet issues
| addressed. This may seem like something that they should be
| able to work out beforehand, but his "priorities" change,
| sometimes daily, often based on who he happened to have
| spoken to last.
|
| 3. Some republicans want the government to break. The
| playbook here is to break the system in some way, point out
| that the system doesn't work, and then make attempts to
| privatize that system or massively overhaul that system
| (likely with massive cuts of workers and largesse to
| contractors). It may seem odd that an elected official
| strives to make the government not work, but they are able
| to make that tack work for them at the polls. I think that
| this is a deep (and warped) issue that is hard for me to
| explain well.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also, the last House was wracked with all sorts of
| deadlock because the Republican majority was only 5
| representatives, and having 5 splinter off was incredibly
| easy.
|
| The current House has an even smaller majority of 2
| currently, so it's now infinitely more possible for a
| deadlock to happen.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| 2 are nearly guaranteed to break because we have a couple
| of republicans that always vote no on budget bills
| because they want massive cuts to everything.
|
| That means either the bill ends up completely destroying
| federal funding, which risks losing centrist republicans
| or republicans in tight district races. Or the bill ends
| up trying to win over a few democrats in similarly
| contested districts, which risks losing a fair bit of
| republicans that reject any bills that have democrat
| votes.
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| The counterpoint from what I have been reading is that
| the Dems will not be helping without concessions,
| particularly about oversite regarding Elon musk, and
| doge.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| See, for instance, how long it took them to elect a
| speaker.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > massive cuts of workers
|
| That is what Trump is _doing_ via DOGE so the burn-it-
| down camp seems pretty well served, more than anytime
| since the post-war demobilization anyway. The impasse, if
| it occurs, is more likely to be with those in Congress
| that _don't_ want to reduce the size of government.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I think the burn-it-down camp is better described as true
| believers in free-marketism, and they genuinely expect
| business to be booming and things to work great when
| they've cut back on government functionality.
|
| DOGE acts different. It seems to me DOGE is about
| crashing the US economy and/or world economy to attempt
| wild and radical Silicon Valley theories about alternate
| societies. As such, its actions are inclined to ruin the
| fortunes and the business of the free marketeer camp,
| because those folks are functioning in the real world and
| have businesses, employees, and pay those employees in
| dollars.
|
| So I don't think the 'burn-it-down' camp should favor
| DOGE. It is in no way their ally and is there to ruin
| them, in order to rebuild a society upon somebody else
| and leave 'em ruined. It's pretty plain to see DOGE's
| opinion of those people based on its attitude to H1B
| visas, for instance.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It's happened before. In 2018 the shutdowns occurred
| despite the Republican hold over both houses.
| stonogo wrote:
| Generally a small cadre of extremists within the ruling
| party holds the entire government hostage for a few days
| over performative nonsense for future campaign purposes.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| So the fed defunding whatever they like by fiat gives the
| Republicans nothing to offer the other side to play ball
| because anything that they offer could easily be taken
| away. Its like showing up to the auction with monopoly
| money.
|
| Without the dems they need almost every Republican to agree
| because their margin is only 5 votes. Historically this is
| difficult because their ranks now include several morons
| and extremists most notably the lady who actually believed
| Jews were responsible for starting wildfires with space
| based lasers.
|
| If a handful of extremists don't ask for crazy nonsense
| they will still have every hand out for pork.
|
| Then it goes to the Senate where it needs 60 votes
| including dems to pass anything. The first round of crazy
| if it passes anything might easily end up with something
| too stupid to pass the Senate without also termination of
| the fillibuster.
| johnrgrace wrote:
| Republicans only hold the house by two seats so to pass
| something they need to have everyone on board. Any single
| republican member of congress that wants to hold the whole
| thing hostage for demands pretty much can.
| jfkrrorj wrote:
| >> So there's a very real chance at this deal offering
| something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets
| dropped due to budget negotiations.
|
| I do not see your arguments
|
| US has worker protections, even if US government goes bancrupt,
| it has to pay its obligations. And if government refuses to
| pay, no worker, even if employed, is getting anything!
| cyanydeez wrote:
| worker protections exist in a world of laws.
|
| This is not the world being offered to them, so good luck
| doing anything but throwing money at lawyers.
|
| everyone who thinks laws are just something you can invoke
| like magic should go sit down.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| If congress doesn't allocate the money, they won't be paid,
| even if they have a contract that says they will.
|
| Imagine Trump decided to offer a worker a trillion dollars.
| He writes a contract with the worker. It is irrelevant - the
| worker won't be paid because the executive branch is not
| allowed to spend money that hasn't been authorized by
| congress.
| jfkrrorj wrote:
| Workers should not be punished for Trumps bankruptcy.
| Government has assets like white house!
| scottLobster wrote:
| And you think that an offer accepted by sending an email with
| "Resign" in the subject line is subject to these protections?
| You think DOGE is even authorized to make said offers? Why,
| because Elon and Trump said so?
|
| Also your last line is just bizarre. The US government can
| very much selectively pay some parties but not others during
| a shutdown. That's kind of the definition of a shutdown....
|
| Plus this administration is already brazenly breaking laws.
| You think they won't violate worker protection laws? Sure,
| maybe the courts sort it out in a year or two, small comfort
| to the people who were relying on that income to pay their
| rent in the meantime.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| The requirements for making a contract are minimal. If your
| friend says "I bet you a hundred dollars that you can't run
| over there and back in less than a minute" and you say
| nothing in response but start running, you've entered into
| a binding contract. Your other points still stand, but an
| email that makes an offer and makes it clear that you
| accept by responding "Resign" and a response to that email
| that says "Resign" is definitely sufficient to be subject
| to contract law.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Your example of a binding contract isn't a binding
| contract since there's no consideration to the person who
| made the bet.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| I think I agree, on reflection, that it is not a binding
| contract. But (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think
| it's a matter of consideration- in a wager, each party
| stands to gain the agreed upon amount depending on the
| outcome, which should qualify for that criteria AFAICT. I
| think the informality of a between-friends bet and
| gambling laws are what do the example in.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yeah that clarification helps and I agree there - there's
| a bunch of exceptions of 'joking bets' etc. I first read
| the offer as "I'll give you $100 if you can run there and
| back in under a minute" rather than each party being able
| to win the $100 which would indeed satisfy the
| consideration requirement.
| toast0 wrote:
| Binding on illegal contracts is tricky. If I offer X for
| murder, and you do the murder and I don't pay you; you
| can't seek recompense in the courts.
|
| If the government's offer is illegal, those who accepted
| it and performed their part of the contract may not be
| able to force the government to perform its part.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| No, they don't. Contracts are enforced by the threat of the
| state's monopoly on violence. If the US goes bunk, who
| exactly are you going to to get your money? The courts are
| bunk too.
|
| Even if the government exists, if Trump and Musk hold the
| payment system and you somehow get a judge to tell them to
| pay, they can just say no. Then what? Are you going to go
| Rambo? They hold a monopoly on violence and imprisonment.
|
| This is why government's need to be set up with so many
| layers of indirect power and checks against direct power.
| this is why the military (should) have no role in governance.
| veggieroll wrote:
| I think the adminstration's plan to execute on this is
| basically garden leave. They tell the "retiring" employees to
| stop working, but keep them on the payroll so they keep getting
| paid.
|
| This administration has been playing a lot of games with
| "budgeted" vs. "delayed" vs. "actively being worked on" (or
| not). So this isn't really that different than the abrupt
| cancellations or delays or re-org'ing of funded and
| legislatively mandated work.
|
| The main difference is the uncertainty. IMO anyone would be
| incredibly foolish to accept a deal from a random email with
| such limited info on the exact terms of what happens in edge
| cases like you describe: shutdown, budget shenanigans, actual
| official RIF, etc.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| That sounds illegal
| dgfitz wrote:
| Do you know how many federal employees were paid to stay
| home for months during covid, not working at all because of
| the classified nature of their work?
|
| Lots.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Sure, but those same employees also had to stay home not
| working for months while they were getting their
| clearances, so clearly that's considered reasonable.
| dcrazy wrote:
| It's not illegal to pay someone who is frustrated by
| circumstance in performing the duties of their government
| job.
|
| It's possibly illegal to pay someone for a government job
| that _doesn't exist anymore._
| nickff wrote:
| I understand your statement in the _de facto_ sense, but
| I think the position is still legally authorized by
| Congress, and thus does exist _de jure_.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| That's because of a then ongoing pandemic and making an
| allowance. That's completely different than just do
| nothing for 6+ months then quit. If you can't see that,
| there's no hope for this discussion.
| transcriptase wrote:
| So the OPM grants them a sabbatical or extended vacation
| or a hundred other things they have the discretion to do.
|
| Pretending or hoping everything unorthodox or
| unprecedented is somehow illegal is already becoming
| tiresome to read about in comment sections and it hasn't
| even been a month of this administration.
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| If they were serious about the offer, they would get it
| passed through Congress on a party line vote via
| reconciliation, they have the votes, there is nothing the
| Dems could do to stop it.
|
| The fact that they have not is telling.
| encoderer wrote:
| All it tells me is that I agree with you and yes congress
| would ratify it, so doing this is pointless and only
| going to slow you down.
|
| Why would it make sense for them to do this? Democrats
| would still howl in disapproval no matter what they did.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sounds like they can join BigHead on the roof with the
| other people waiting for contracts to expire but
| deliberately not given work to do
| cm2187 wrote:
| Garden leaves are done all the times in the private sector.
| afavour wrote:
| ...which the public sector is not. It's highly regulated.
| stonogo wrote:
| Nothing is currently highly regulated.
| afavour wrote:
| Yes it is. That regulation is just not currently being
| enforced. Which is an important difference because at
| some point down the line retroactive enforcement might
| occur.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four
| years is going to be "That sounds illegal" but it's only
| illegal if the law gets enforced. I encourage anyone
| responding with "That sounds illegal" or "They can't do
| that" to also include in their response, "...and it will be
| enforced by [xxxx]." and try to come up with a realistic
| xxxx.
|
| EDIT: I'm not making any judgment about whether this
| particular thing is legal or not--just pointing out that
| _it doesn 't matter if it's legal_ if nobody in power
| intends to enforce the law.
| fawley wrote:
| Illegal acts should be called out, even if our government
| is failing to enforce the law. Otherwise it will become
| easy for the acts to get ignored entirely.
| iamEAP wrote:
| Unless you're a member of congress or a civil servant in
| the executive branch, paying any attention to this is
| wasted energy.
|
| We already saw this play out in his last term. Directing
| how laws are enforced is a function of the executive
| branch. Nothing will be done.
|
| Your energy is better spent identifying and articulating
| the values you hold that these actions are an affront to
| and shouting that out.
| fawley wrote:
| At minimum, drawing people's attention to the ongoing
| issues can result in a different batch of congressional
| representatives in the future.
|
| Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.
| ryandrake wrote:
| We are kind of locked into what we have. A single digit
| percentage of House races are ever contested. The vast
| majority of House districts are won by the party that
| already holds them[1].
|
| 1: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2024/10/30/decade-af...
| ipaddr wrote:
| If 4% or 18 seats were switched four years ago why
| wouldn't that matter because currently the majority is
| thin and only a few seats. That could flip in two years.
| My guess after the gaza comments is more likely than not
| to switch.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >At minimum, drawing people's attention to the ongoing
| issues can result in a different batch of congressional
| representatives in the future.
|
| >Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.
|
| The odds are slim to none since the public didn't already
| act, 4 years after the previous act of treason by Trump,
| on top of the fact that he campaigned on pardoning his
| treasonous co-conspirators. In fact, he was rewarded with
| control of all 3 branches of government.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The Democrats were leading by 8 or more until the worst
| debate performance in history followed by a weak
| replacement. People never really cared about the capital
| riot. They cared about getting costs down... costs are
| going up with tariffing the world and businesses will
| suffer when they are shut out of foreign markets.
|
| Things have already changed since the last election.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I would say an extraordinary amount of effort from
| foreign adversaries had to be undertaken to get that
| outcome.
|
| Careful not to assume the public is composed of rational
| actors all of whom have good information, when they're
| demonstrably not and haven't. Drawing people's attention
| to the ongoing issues can result in a huge amount of
| buyer's remorse among people who tried hard not to pay
| attention to the election in hopes things could be more
| 'normal' if they voted for what they thought would be the
| political party they knew.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| This. Remember when he literally did a commercial for
| Goya products from the resolute desk? His justification
| was that they were being "cancelled" and that the law
| surrounding the white house endorsing products for
| political support was his to enforce or not and he was
| just not gonna enforce it.
| jdross wrote:
| It would be nice if anyone would state a law being
| violated. A lot of people seem to be making a lot of
| assumptions too about what DOGE/Elon are doing vs what
| the president or directors of the agencies (for instance)
| are doing
| fawley wrote:
| I do agree that citing specific laws is best. However, if
| the building is on fire, I want the alarm bells on
| immediately even if it's low specificity.
|
| What sort of assumptions have you been seeing?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > if the building is on fire
|
| If you're already allowing the question to be begged,
| there's really no need for specificity in the argument.
|
| Because if there was no law being broken, that means that
| the building was not on fire. People tell me that
| shouting "fire!" is supposed to be bad when there is no
| fire. I don't think they would accept it as being "low-
| specificity."
| intended wrote:
| Sure. Remember this when people say that the dems
| constantly complain about the repubs, and that people are
| tired of hearing people say things are illegal.
|
| My guess is that at this point, talk is cheap, and
| actions speak louder than words.
|
| So saying the same thing, just a different language.
|
| And no: I have zero clue what the actions would look
| like. Maybe suing the govt?
| i80and wrote:
| Things can be illegal even if there's no enforcement
| mechanism, and while it's a really frustrating situation,
| people are right to be vocal and proactive about saying
| it.
| inetknght wrote:
| Yes, and it would be valuable to help understand what
| enforcement agencies people _think_ can /should do
| enforcement, and also to help educate those people when
| they're wrong.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _it 's only illegal if the law gets enforced._
|
| It is completely valid to say something is illegal _and_
| unenforced.
|
| Consider that non-enforcement doesn't suddenly make
| something legal. Enforcement can start at any time. (Will
| it? Who knows!)
| snailmailstare wrote:
| The larger problem is that they are at the border of or
| past crimes that either will get prosecuted eventually or
| we are at the end of democratic controls (starting at
| term limits) so that these people never get prosecuted.
| danielheath wrote:
| > It is completely valid to say something is illegal and
| unenforced.
|
| It seems somewhat vacuous to say it when it applies to
| every second administrative act.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| Enabling act? Executive order? Administrative regulation?
| The Administrative Procedure Act?
|
| What is an administrative act in this context?
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| But for purposes of debating what someone should do
| illegal and unenforced generates the same outcomes as
| legal and if we're only concerned about outcomes it's
| rational to treat them as equivalent.
| everforward wrote:
| For the government, it largely does because the
| individuals are immune from lawsuits and the government
| fining itself is a pointless ouroboros. Many things can't
| be retroactively unwound reasonably.
|
| Once the impact has been made, it's pretty sticky. Once
| these workers are gone and have been replaced, we're
| unlikely to unwind it. Once people are deported we're
| unlikely to un-deport them (I'm not even sure what that
| would mean).
|
| Completely correct for individuals, though. Unwinding is
| simple there, you can just send them to jail at a later
| date.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| How can something be illegal before any judge ruled on
| it?
| netsharc wrote:
| Indeed... welcome to the newest "failed state". Although,
| that term reminds me of Sarah Chayes' book on corruption,
| reviewed at length in [1].
|
| > But, as Chayes studied the graft of the Karzai
| government, she concluded that it was anything but
| benign. Many in the political elite were not merely
| stealing reconstruction money but expropriating farmland
| from other Afghans. Warlords could hoodwink U.S. special
| forces into dispatching their adversaries by feeding the
| Americans intelligence tips about supposed Taliban ties.
| Many of those who made money from the largesse of the
| international community enjoyed a sideline in the drug
| trade. Afghanistan is often described as a "failed
| state," but, in light of the outright thievery on
| display, Chayes began to reassess the problem. This
| wasn't a situation in which the Afghan government was
| earnestly trying, but failing, to serve its people. The
| government was actually succeeding, albeit at "another
| objective altogether" -- the enrichment of its own
| members. Washington supported Hamid Karzai and his
| ministers and adjutants in the hope that they could
| establish a stable government, help pursue Al Qaeda, and
| keep the Taliban at bay. But the Karzai government wasn't
| a government at all, Chayes concluded. It was "a
| vertically integrated criminal organization."
|
| [1] https://archive.is/E6zXj
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Also, sounding illegal and being illegal are two
| different things. I really hope these discussions lead to
| more posts to neutral reference material, rather than
| just asserting things are illegal.
|
| For example:
|
| https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C
| 2-3...
|
| https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C
| 2-3...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The OPs procedure expect normal people to break the law.
|
| Any observation you have for the oligopolists being able
| to commit mass murder or whatever won't apply to that
| people.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I encourage anyone responding with "That sounds
| illegal" or "They can't do that" to also include in their
| response, "...and it will be enforced by [xxxx]." and try
| to come up with a realistic xxxx.
|
| I encourage before doing that to find out if the thing is
| actually illegal, and to cite the law that it violates.
| This will be better than relying on sounds or smells.
| jameshart wrote:
| If you work for a local government, say, and your boss
| says 'hey, here's my plan: you stop coming to work, and
| I'll make sure you get paid anyway for a few months', if
| you accept those terms and go along with that plan, and
| then later on it turns out your boss was not allowed to
| do that, and you got paid a bunch of government money
| illegally... Normally that might come back to bite you,
| potentially years later. That's the exact kind of shape
| and form of various public corruption scandals.
|
| I would be very nervous about personally benefitting from
| what might amount to a scheme to embezzle government
| funds.
|
| Just because nobody in government today is interested in
| looking into whether or not this is legal doesn't mean it
| will never come under scrutiny.
| yapyap wrote:
| oh brother, totally agree.
|
| but also, legality is a thing of the past in the new way of
| things it feels.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| That's called giving up and it's exactly what they want
| you to do. Do not concede without a fight. Call your
| elected representatives and tell them you expect them to
| hold these people accountable and to be loud about it.
| dingnuts wrote:
| which representative? the one that "represents" a cracked
| district and doesn't see me as a constituent? or the
| senator who also doesn't see me as a constituent because
| of my address?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Talk about the people you are gathering together in the
| district.
| stevage wrote:
| Would that cause employees to break laws if they accepted
| employment elsewhere during that time?
| scottyah wrote:
| No, it is specifically stated that there are no
| repercussions for finding other work.
| causality0 wrote:
| It's an even better deal if it gets torn up after a month. You
| get a one month paid vacation and then go back to work.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > You get a one month paid vacation
|
| I wrote it elsewhere, but no. It may or may not be a paid
| vacation. Agencies get to decide themselves, not OPM, whether
| the employees are put on leave or continue to work. There is
| _zero_ guarantee that anyone will get administrative leave
| under the offering.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You've already resigned...
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| But that resignation was part of a larger deal. If the deal
| is thrown out, shouldn't the resignation be thrown out too?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And what happens when you try to come back to work? Will
| Musk pay you or allow you into the office? He literally
| has control of the federal budget for payments now.
|
| We are getting into banana republic territory now with no
| rule of law.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I definitely wouldn't put it past Elon Musk to offer a
| buyout, collect a list of names who "accept" and then
| fire them all as disloyal, without any buyout. It would
| be on-character.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Specifically we're getting into territory where political
| actors choose to behave like there is no rule of law, in
| hopes they will be believed.
|
| Not sure about that one. Nor do I think the election
| would have gone the way it did if people generally
| figured their choice was to have Elon Musk's word be law,
| and everything else including the Constitution to be
| thrown away as old hat.
|
| I really don't think people priced that into their
| decision, so buyer's remorse becomes a real factor.
| People may demand that rule of law not be thrown away.
| aeternum wrote:
| If the gov will not be funded and you don't believe the gov
| will honor it's severance agreement why would you believe the
| employment contract will be honored after March 14?
| Retric wrote:
| There's many examples of government shutdowns where workers
| received back pay even when they didn't work those hours.
|
| So future administrations are likely to retroactively approve
| payments if it becomes a political issue. Honestly taking the
| buyout without an act of congress backing it is likely the
| more risky here unless you where already planning to leave
| which is likely why most people took it.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| By law they have to be paid for the furloughed time in the
| case of a shutdown, since 2019. Previously, they were
| typically paid for that time whether they had to work
| through the shutdown or not but it was not guaranteed.
|
| https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12251
| ryandrake wrote:
| Who's going to enforce that law?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That's a good question, perhaps it should be posed to the
| members of the so-called party of law and order.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| The question is whether if the deal gets voided by the court,
| the employee has to still quit or whether they can then return.
| Especially since the employee wouldn't be formally terminated
| until the end of the twelve months.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and
| they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Aren 't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances
| and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money
| to pay._
|
| Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that
| dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place
| liens against the company, my guess is that neither the
| Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout
| people will ever see a dime.
|
| For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX
| becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come
| by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently
| as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find:
| https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-
| bills-t...
| weinzierl wrote:
| I am complete outsider and know nothing about this so I am
| sorry to ask but in my view this is a shocking proposition.
| Can anyone corroborate this?
|
| EDIT: Specifically the claim that _" SpaceX is so far
| behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in
| Texas have had to place liens against the company"_
| hx8 wrote:
| Corroborating complaints about twitter severance [0]. The
| lawsuit was dismissed because of jurisdiction, not merit.
|
| [0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-
| beats-500-million-se...
| scottyah wrote:
| They churn through employees fast and they usually exit
| through burnout (no offloading) and the people wanting to
| work there skew towards young people who don't know what
| they're doing. A lot of work gets delayed, dropped, etc
| and some bad suppliers even take advantage of that ("the
| last person said they'd do X").
|
| I know it's en-vogue to hate on Elon companies, and a lot
| of people would love to hear that the World's Richest Man
| is having financial issues, but in reality it's a bunch
| of starry-eyed newgrads trying to make the world better
| but taking on more than they can handle.
| djohnston wrote:
| It's remarkable that, for a bunch of young people who
| don't know what they're doing, they've completely
| decimated any competitors - both public and private.
| renewiltord wrote:
| These guys are idiots, fucking morons, and can't get
| anything right. Somehow they're also outcompeting us on
| everything. It isn't clear why, but it must be because we
| are smarter.
| dastbe wrote:
| all the other competitors are unserious and/or treating
| it as a money siphoning scheme. in particular, the public
| contractors siphoning money from the government and blue
| origin siphoning money from bezos.
|
| It would be surprising if spacex wasn't just awful at
| paying things on time, as there's no reason they should
| have actual financial difficulties.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, I've always been trying to be objective as possible
| when it comes to the hate sent towards Tesla, SpaceX, etc
| from the heat Elon is getting but having lived near
| Hawthorne, I've met a couple of people who worked at
| SpaceX and it is insane. I had a really good friend who
| moved from the midwest with his wife to spacex and she
| became a favorite at spacex which meant she lived at
| spacex. He would see her like once a week and eventually
| they went to shit. I had applied there before but after
| seeing that I was no longer interested
| bmitc wrote:
| They're hard to come by because people think rockets
| magically solve all of our problems and so any problems
| they introduce are ignored for the "greater good".
| robocat wrote:
| The article mentions $2.5MM liens which is drastically less
| than 1% of expenses of $1445MM ("[SpaceX] generated $55
| million in profit on $1.5 billion in revenue during the
| first quarter of 2023")
|
| It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble
| paying.
|
| I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as
| possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run
| as an extremely mercenary company.
|
| Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their
| lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of
| deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe [?] junk bond rate
| per year).
| ben_w wrote:
| While interesting, I don't see how it might make any
| difference to any federal workers' decisions?
|
| Musk doesn't pay "because he can get away with it" isn't
| better or worse than "because there's a money shortage";
| and in any case, the federal government being delinquent
| is a very different kind of catastrophe, as is it making
| promises it refuses to keep.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Is it possible Mr. Musk's companies are actually in deep
| trouble financially, and this political stuff is actually a
| means to an end?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Tesla is abundantly wealthy mostly on the back of it's
| delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
| ty6853 wrote:
| As was Enron...
| carom wrote:
| To my knowledge, no. Former employees sued to get Twitter's
| old pre-acquisition severance package and the court dismissed
| it. [1]
|
| 1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-
| ex-...
| breadwinner wrote:
| How about this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-
| loses-battle-dismis...
| yashasolutions wrote:
| This one is about executives not regular employees.
| olalonde wrote:
| Not American here. Isn't Congress controlled by Republicans? If
| I understand correctly, it would take 5+ Republicans voting
| against the party line for a Republican bill to fail to pass?
| Is this common?
| ojbyrne wrote:
| I think the number is only 2 or 3 because once some people
| are confirmed for the cabinet, they have to leave the House
| of Representatives.
| djohnston wrote:
| Really? There must be some replacement who steps in though,
| no? Otherwise districts would have no representation, which
| seems unlikely.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| For the House of Representatives, the state will hold a
| special election to fill vacancies:
|
| > When vacancies happen in the Representation from any
| State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs
| of Election to fill such Vacancies.
|
| - Article I, Section 2
|
| For the Senate, the governor of the state may (per their
| legislative body's approval) make a temporary appointment
| and will also hold a special election:
|
| > When vacancies happen in the representation of any
| State in the Senate, the executive authority of such
| State shall issue writs of election to fill such
| vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State
| may empower the executive thereof to make temporary
| appointments until the people fill the vacancies by
| election as the legislature may direct.
|
| - Amendment XVII
|
| https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-
| transcri...
|
| https://www.archives.gov/founding-
| docs/amendments-11-27#toc-...
| dev_daftly wrote:
| It's not like this is unprecedented, Bill Clinton did the same
| thing.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Can we not just make things up please? His buyout plan was
| approved by congress and signed into law before he allowed
| anyone to opt in which is the entire crux of the issue.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-1994-03-31-mn-40541-...
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That option is also available to Trump but it has not been
| made yet, it's the VSIP option and is an actual buyout.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Kind of odd seeing people casually discuss the
| mechanics/details of what's been going on this last week, as if
| they whole thing isn't just flagrantly illegal.
|
| Reminds me of this:
| https://www.upworthy.com/hypernormalization-explained.
| Fomite wrote:
| And proposed by two people, Musk and Trump, who are, shall we
| say, not great at holding up their end of financial bargains.
| zrail wrote:
| It is incredibly foolish to entertain this offer. OPM v
| Richmond[1] held that the government has effectively zero
| liability for lying about financial benefits that haven't been
| specifically authorized by Congress.
|
| [1]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/496/414/
| n0rdy wrote:
| I've always found this approach of reducing the number of
| employees unwise from the company perspective (but pretty good
| for the employees, though).
|
| While the unsatisfied employees are the target, my observations
| indicate that a high percentage of active and skilled people are
| willing to take this offer, as they are sure that they will find
| a new place within a reasonable time, so it's basically, free
| money. And those are the people that the company should try to
| keep as much as it could. While the "give me a task with the
| perfect description, and I will do it" folks will stay until they
| are kicked out, as, usually, they are not up to taking the
| initiative.
|
| That's why I saw how the companies that were changing the rules
| in the process: "well, it's an offer, but your manager needs to
| approve that first", and other tricks to be able to reject it for
| the top performers. Needless to say, it leads to the bad moral.
|
| However, the companies I'm mentioning had way fewer employees
| than the federal workforce, so the chances are that with that
| size it's impossible to do it the "right" way.
| neonarray wrote:
| Yes, but I believe this is the intent. It's not a matter of it
| being good for the business when the CEO of said business
| intentionally wants it to fail.
| feoren wrote:
| > unwise from the company perspective
|
| The goal is to destroy most of these federal agencies, so doing
| things that are "unwise" for the future of those agencies is
| exactly the point.
| orasis wrote:
| On a larger level, if the active & skilled people are taking
| the deal, doesn't it mean they're likely moving on to something
| that is a better fit and thus good for society anyway?
| outside1234 wrote:
| These people are fools. They are never going to get paid as this
| scheme was illegal.
|
| And even if it was legal, see Twitter and severance.
| lawn wrote:
| And Trump's decades of refusing to pay people.
| robomartin wrote:
| The idea that government workers cannot be hired and fired at
| will is wrong.
|
| Government workers should have no more rights than the single
| mother working at a restaurant or business, or anyone working at
| any normal business in the US.
|
| I other words, they should not have more rights or protections
| than the people who pay the taxes that pay for their salaries and
| benefits.
|
| One of the most fundamental problems in various types of
| organizations with these types of protections is what I call
| "human rot". These are people who are lazy and incompetent and
| who only remain employed because of these protections as opposed
| to merit, doing a good job and actually making valuable
| contributions to the organization.
|
| Locally, one of the most disgusting examples I came across is a
| middle school "science" teacher who is a chiropractor and teaches
| absolute nonsense and falsehoods to our kids. For example --and
| this is just one of many-- he has been teaching that the moon
| does not spin on its axis. Yeah. Beyond that, he is a jerk to the
| kids and does not allow them to ask questions. He cannot be
| challenged or fired for any of it. He is protected. And we wonder
| why our results in education are shit.
| jotux wrote:
| You're confusing state and federal employees with your teacher
| example.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| The government needs to be downsized by millions, so this isn't
| enough. Unfortunately public sector unions, which shouldn't even
| exist, are probably going to slow down the ability of the
| government to get efficient.
| locallost wrote:
| Plus, the positive side effect of the government sector getting
| as efficient as the private sector and especially the tech
| sector, would be the massive expansion of the domestic foosball
| manufacturing industry.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You realize that this won't make a dent in the budget compared
| to military spending, social security and Medicare?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > The government needs to be downsized by millions
|
| Curious about the reason for this. Is there math that shows the
| first- and second-order effects of specific roles being
| removed? I ask because I've seen so much talk about the need
| for this, seemingly without much being supplied in the way of
| reason.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| this is what you might call a vibes-based analysis. proof
| that the government needs to be dramatically downsized is
| found in the way it feels good to say and jives with relevant
| preconceptions.
| nilamo wrote:
| > Unfortunately public sector unions, which shouldn't even
| exist
|
| You what? Why in the world do you think unions shouldn't exist?
| I had a parent that did a lot with FEW (Federally Employed
| Women) and NARFE (National Active and Retired Federal
| Employees) at TACOM, where I learned how much the union does
| for federal employees, so your statement sounds like complete
| nonsense to me.
| buerkle wrote:
| Why? The number of federal employees has hovered around 2
| million for decades even though the population has grown.
| Sounds pretty efficient to me
| root_axis wrote:
| My personal and probably not unique prediction is that these
| people will be let go and not be paid - same thing he did with
| twitter.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| It is worth looking back at President Musk's previous actions
| here. I know the twitter engineers sued. Was it ever settled?
| hypothesis wrote:
| It appears most of those claims went to arbitration, so we
| are unlikely to learn results...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/most-lawsuit-
| over-m...
| justin66 wrote:
| There are some pretty significant differences between Twitter
| employees and federal government employees, starting with the
| fact that a lot of latter group are part of a powerful union.
| toss1 wrote:
| Sure, but even in a normal situation, all the Union can do is
| provide greater resources to initiate legal and possibly work
| actions. Which, in a normal situation might be very
| effective.
|
| This is _NOT_ anything resembling a normal situation; to
| treat it as such is merely an exercise in normalcy bias.
|
| Under an authoritarian regime, as is being setup as we type,
| legal actions are irrelevant as the judicial and legislative
| branches lose independence and serve the executive. Work
| actions likely result in the union being decertified and
| dissolved.
| root_axis wrote:
| Let's see what happens. At this point, I'm not convinced the
| union has any leverage.
| bmitc wrote:
| The federal employee unions have incredible power, often to
| the detriment of the government.
| delfinom wrote:
| Pretty sure they will just executive order the unions are
| void, Congress won't do a thing and the courts may get to
| it in 3 decades.
| flustercan wrote:
| That power comes from the idea that the federal employees
| can shut down government operations if they stop working.
| This administration (supposedly) wants dearly to shut
| down government operations, so the union doesn't have any
| power.
| tencentshill wrote:
| What good is a lawsuit if He decides to ignore it and not
| pay? One side of that battle is ultimately backed up by
| the military.
| root_axis wrote:
| Like I said, at this point I'm not convinced they have
| any leverage.
| ahi wrote:
| patco was also a powerful union. Trump has already declared
| he will nullify the AFGE contract (legality be damned).
| duxup wrote:
| I think they'd "like" to, but he legal protections for the
| employees in this case are vast compared to twitter. But as an
| employee, I would worry that they would try... we already have
| an administration that SCOTUS has decided is above the law in
| other ways.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Who knows how evenly spread it is? It may be that each service
| gets better, it may be all services stay the same except for,
| say, NRO, and we miss a nuclear center being built.
| ggreer wrote:
| I'm guessing you meant the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not
| the National Reconnaissance Office. Considering that since the
| NRC was created in 1975, no nuclear plant license initially
| submitted to them has begun commercial operations, I think it
| would be difficult to further impede progress.[1]
|
| I have no clue whether these buyouts will be beneficial or not.
| It really depends on how government responsibilities are
| structured. If everything operates under the same rules but
| there are fewer workers to process everything, then it will
| hurt economic and technological growth. If, on the other hand,
| there is a lot of dead weight in these departments, or the
| rules change to streamline certain processes, then it could be
| a net improvement. It will probably be years before we have a
| definitive answer. And as you say, it will probably be
| different for different parts of the government.
|
| 1. Some new nuclear power plants have come online since 1975,
| but they were all from licenses that were initially submitted
| to the NRC's predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission. Also
| the NRC did approve two new nuclear reactors at an existing
| plant, and those did begin commercial operations 19 years after
| the license was applied for.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
| panzagl wrote:
| He means NRO- the US would miss a nuclear center being built
| in Iran or where ever because all the NRO left to be SpaceX
| minions.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| oh, so we're doing politics on HN now?
| benatkin wrote:
| It's quite similar to the student loan forgiveness in terms of it
| being about financial obligations to middle class citizens and it
| being attempted without Congress, as well as the likelihood for
| overpromising and underdelivering. The ordinary citizens making a
| choice in a way that would have an effect like promissory
| estoppel adds an interesting wrinkle but I don't see how it
| changes the constitutionality of it. I think that many of those
| calling it unconstitutional are being hypocritical, even though
| they may be right.
| excalibur wrote:
| Sellouts
| Mithriil wrote:
| > "a senior administration official tells Axios."
|
| Another source of misinformation, now, maybe?
| jmclnx wrote:
| As someone who has been offered similar buy-outs, the one
| presented here is a poor deal. I would not have taken that one
| unless I already had a job waiting for me.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Not an American, but the reported resignation process of just
| sending arbitrary content email with subject "resign" to
| "hr@opm.gov" feels like the real aim is to collect emails and
| response time data to establish cluster system health metric to
| determine which nodes can be murdered safely.
|
| It's almost strange to me that this aspect, and stupidity of
| injecting non-compiling code to human mainframes collective that
| runs on legalese in an attempt to collect such data, seem to be
| rarely discussed.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Not an American, but the reported resignation process of just
| sending arbitrary content email with subject "resign" to
| "hr@opm.gov" feels like the real aim is to collect emails and
| response time data to establish cluster system health metric to
| determine which nodes can be murdered safely.
|
| Is that all it takes? Think they check DKIM and SPF?
| duxup wrote:
| Being asked to take a deal that the administration may be
| offering illegally is a wild situation to be in. Especially when
| the administration doing so seems to have little regard for the
| law, and SCOTUS has deemed them above the law to some extent.
|
| Are you making a deal they will actually pay, and could it be
| that the administration simply chooses to ignore the courts?
| chairmansteve wrote:
| The plan seems to be to fire almost all government emoloyees. The
| only historical parallel I can come up with is the De
| Baathification program in Iraq 2003.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| RAGE is one of the main points of this entire department.
| Retire All Government Employees.
| bgnn wrote:
| Collapse oc the DDR smd Soviet Union maybe?
| tdeck wrote:
| Completely destroying a government so that contracfors from the
| US private sector could sweep in and take over? I fail to see
| the parallels.
| legitster wrote:
| Now just imagine every future administration does this, and we
| have more or less returned to the Spoils System through a
| loophole.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
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