Musk’s mass firings are already backfiring
"Culling the federal workforce with a sledgehammer does nothing to advance efficiency.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been rapidly firing federal workers with little consideration for which ones are critical to government functioning. So now, the Energy Department is scrambling to rehire people abruptly let go from the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Federal Aviation Administration is struggling to explain why 400 staffers were let go mere days after one of the deadliest airplane crashes in U.S. history. And the Agriculture Department is attempting to bring back people fired despite being part of the effort to stop avian flu, which has decimated chicken farms and sent egg prices soaring.
Americans widely agree that their government is burdened by “waste, fraud and abuse.” But the U.S. DOGE Service is simply taking a sledgehammer to federal operations. The result is predictable: Vital functions — including safeguarding nuclear weapons — that should have been nowhere near the chopping block have been axed.
The White House has yet to disclose the total number of people precipitously fired. About 77,000 of 2.4 million civilian federal workers opted for deferred resignation, which is supposed to pay them through September. Then Trump fired many of the 200,000 federal employees on “probationary status,” meaning they had spent less than two years in their current roles. It’s unclear how many probationary workers were let go in the “Valentine’s Day Massacre,” but thousands of them have joined class-action lawsuits to challenge Trump’s ability to fire them without proof of “poor performance.”
The dismissals were so chaotic and rushed, termination letters often listed wrong start dates or wrong jobs, or left the agency name blank, as if a form letter hadn’t been properly filled out. Some workers notified their own bosses that they had been fired.
Follow Editorial Board
This mass firing has been compared to President Bill Clinton’s reducing the government headcount by 351,000 positions — or about 20 percent. “The era of big government is over,” Clinton said in 1996.
But Clinton’s approach was quite different. He launched a six-month review of agencies to identify positions that could safely be eliminated and then slimmed the workforce gradually. In short, his administration did the hard work that Musk only claimed DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, would do. Clinton also spoke frequently about the need to help the remaining federal workers become even more productive.
In contrast, Trump and Musk often denigrate federal workers. Musk has claimed they are “getting wealthy at taxpayer expense.”
Americans will experience the fallout from DOGE’s haste soon enough. The National Park Service has let go about 1,000 employees, and many of them have been sharing their stories on social media. These are Americans who love the outdoors and often are willing to live in remote areas or earn less than they could make in the private sector because they want to preserve — and share their enthusiasm for — the country’s parks. Without them, it will be difficult to keep the parks maintained, clean and open.
The IRS, for its part, has laid off thousands of employees in the midst of tax-filing season. IRS staffing was already so low that, in 2022, only 10 percent of taxpayer calls were answered, and there were long delays in processing paperwork. The agency was recently granted funding to upgrade its antiquated computer systems and pursue unpaid taxes from wealthy scofflaws. But Trump is rolling back that effort.
Trump and Musk celebrate their layoffs as if they will bring significant savings. They won’t. The U.S. government spent $6.75 trillion last year. Cutting 10 percent of the federal workforce stands to save about $25 billion, economists at Deutsche Bank have calculated — less than 1 percent of the total. Musk has also claimed that Social Security has been paying benefits to millions of people older than 100 who are likely dead. But last year, only 86,000 Americans 99 and older were receiving payments, and this number tracks with census data.
Yes, the government needs to evolve and continually strive for greater efficiency. For years, the Government Accountability Office, among other entities, has been urging technology upgrades and more checks on wasteful spending. But Musk’s approach will not achieve lasting change that benefits America. It’s a “fire first, figure it out later” strategy. That’s not the way to improve nuclear security or any other critical government objectives."
No comments:
Post a Comment