Less than 2 weeks into Trump v2.0, those of us who write about politics have been reminded of a couple of really tricky things when it comes to discussing his economic agenda. The first is that the Trump White House engages in so much spin, and so much dishonesty, and does so much "flooding the zone" with crap, it is really hard to accurately recount exactly what is going on.
For example, we had an item on Wednesday about the initiative meant to push a bunch of federal employees out the door. We correctly noted the underlying motivation, and that there was much reason for skepticism about the scheme, but we did not fully appreciate exactly how phony the whole thing is. The good news is that we have plenty of readers who work for one federal agency or another, and so can help fill in the gaps. Here's a much better explanation of the whole thing, from a reader who is directly affected:
I want to note that the offer to Federal employees is NOT a buyout, or an offer to pay employees to not work. Instead this is a "deferred" resignation, where you tell them by February 6 that you will resign ON Sept 30. The trade-off here is ONLY that the employees who take the offer will be exempt from the return-to-office orders and can continue to work remotely for the last months of their employment (well, maybe, since we know how promises from these guys go).
Also included in the letter were indications that the location, hours, and assignments of that employee may be changed at the will of the government, and you are agreeing not to fight that. In addition, there is NO indication that they cannot still fire you early. While administrative leave is mentioned, it is left up to the discretion of the office, and in most cases, administrative leave is limited to 10 days. And even should they find a way to put folks on administrative leave for the entire 7 months, there are strict rules around holding a "second" job, which I am sure will be enforced even for those who are resigning this way, so getting a different job would be problematic. After all, they are still "employed" during that 7 months, even if on leave.
In short, this is NOT a buyout, in any way, shape, or form. This is a trap. The media is doing the nation a grave disservice in describing this as a buyout.
We are keeping folks who send us these reports anonymous, for obvious reasons. We have full confidence that these readers are telling the truth, and we have numerous messages from federal workers that reiterate the same points. We thought we would share one more of those, that speaks not only to the scammery going on, but some of the other dynamics of the Trump administration's "management":
As a career civil servant for a sub-agency of the department of defense, I appreciate that you captured some of the important nuances of this latest effort to push out federal workers. What many outlets failed to mention is that the e-mail we received with this "opportunity" also included language like this:In other words, this e-mail was very much a threat, with a little sprinkle of demanding loyalty in there. But many in our agency seem to believe the offer may also be bogus or unlawful. For starters, the rather silly way we "redeem" this offer is outlined in the e-mail, and is to: "Type the word 'Resign' into the body of this reply e-mail. Hit 'Send'." What??? So you end your career, and leave your group and agency with no direct communication to your chain of command that your duties need to be reassigned, by typing a one-word e-mail to an unknown brand-new e-mail address, like you are opting in to marketing texts? Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) pointed out there is no budget allocation for paying workers for this time. There is no real protection for us if Trump, on a whim, decides to fire us early anyway. The people likely to accept this are people planning to retire anyway, in which case Trump just wasted billions of tax dollars giving them extra money and time in service for their pension calculation, if he pays them at all (one might be reminded of his history of stiffing people to whom he promised money).
- "We cannot give you assurance regarding the certainty of your position"
- "The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy"
- "Federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force"
The deadline for accepting this offer is February 6. When are agencies supposed to release their updated policies regarding return-to-work? February 7. A skeptic of Trump's offer might think he is being advised that he is running into a legal wall with the current collective bargaining agreements and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, and he is trying to get rid of anyone he can with scare tactics before workers have the full information (and, of course, before the rubber hits the road with lawsuits in response to his future firing attempts).
We had a virtual "all hands" meeting with thousands of people and agency leaders regarding "return to work" initiatives. The general refrain from the ranking leader, to the barrage of questions and fears, was that "we need to await agency guidance." But I was also a bit taken aback with how candid he was about how unrealistic the whole return-to-office initiative was. He said plainly, to a question about possible relocation of workers, "Regardless of relocation incentives, we simply do not have enough office space and desks to bring everyone back to the office. It cannot be done." During COVID, the government learned that productivity increased with people working from home, and started selling off expensive office buildings. The government saved tens of billions with the sales, and by passing along the ongoing costs of office supplies, electricity, etc. onto its workers, who now have home offices at their own expense. If the goal is government savings, this is the wrong way to go. And, as of now, it isn't possible in the near future even if they tried.
I've worked for DoD for over 15 years. I have never seen morale this low, or people more distracted and unable to focus on basic work output. Perhaps this too shall pass, but I suspect this will lead to further brain drain of the government. I work in a highly specialized group within the government where it is hard to attract top talent vs. the private sector, and we have lost applicants due to the salary restrictions before. Two of my colleagues are considering leaving, since they can easily find a higher-paying job for an outside firm and the perks of working for the government (such as remote work and job security) seem to be eroding or gone. And my anecdotal experience within our group is likely to be shared across agencies: When you make it a scary, miserable place to work, the highly qualified people leave, and the lazy people or people who can't find work elsewhere stay. We may lose two of our best, and the actions from the White House will not make it easier to remove the ones in our group who do not contribute. This reminds me of Trump's tariff policies. They sound good to the simple-minded, but when you actually look at the impacts of these policies, they tend to have the opposite effect than the one that is aimed for. Under the guise of "making government more efficient and saving taxpayer money," he will be making the government lazier and less competent, while costing taxpayers money in both the short and long term. Trump in a nutshell.
We thank both of you for sharing your insights, as well as others who wrote in with messages that served as confirmation.
Let us also note that there was much coverage yesterday of the various hurdles that Trump's plan will run into, both legal and logistical. There was also much coverage of the fact that, as we've noted, this is mostly being driven by Elon Musk. Musk is clearly in over his head, and clearly does not understand (and presumably does not care to understand) the difference between "private business" and "the federal government." Although even if he does understand the difference, it's worth taking a look at his leadership of eX-Twitter, and how his "break everything" philosophy has worked out with that concern (hint: It's lost 80% of its value in a little over a year).
Meanwhile, the second real challenge when it comes to Trumponomics (or a lot of the other things coming out of this White House), is trying to answer the question: "What the hell happened here?" Obviously, we are entirely comfortable with the notion that Trump is pretty incompetent and pretty stupid. However, he's surrounded by people who are certainly more capable than he. And some of those people must be thinking things through, right? RIGHT? So, we are strongly inclined to look for the method in the madness, because our gut tells us so strongly that it must be there. But sometimes, there really is no method.
The mess we describe above certainly looks to be one example of this. A person in one fiefdom (Elon Musk) decided to do something without bothering to check with anyone in the other fiefdoms. And the result is going to be a lot of angst, and a lot of wasted time and energy, and a lot of lawsuits, and... no real hope of achieving whatever was supposed to be achieved.
The federal funding freeze is another example. That one came from OMB, which means that the feudal lord responsible was undoubtedly Russell Vought. The memo ordering the freeze, which is now widely available on the Internet, is badly written, gives instructions that are vague to the point of being meaningless, and spends almost as much time on political grandstanding as it does explaining the relevant policy decisions. This is simply not the work of someone who is being particularly competent or particularly thoughtful. It's a slap-dash attempt to impose an agenda, presumably before some other feudal lord in some other fiefdom can assert themselves.
The chicken-with-its-head-cut-off response, after the memo was released, served to affirm that we were looking at the work of incompetent boobs. Initially, the White House stuck by the plan. Then, there was blowback from both the media and from Congress. Then, OMB issued a new memo, one that contradicted the original memo. Then, OMB rescinded the funding freeze. Then, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the freeze was still in effect, it was just the original memo that was rescinded. Then, a judge waded in and halted the freeze. Then, the White House decided that the freeze itself was lifted, not just the memo.
Although we admit we were searching for the method here, it is now clear to us that there was none, just madness. And we absolutely refuse to believe that this was some sort of distraction or opening shot or attempt to shake things up, in service of a long-term plan. No, it was a humiliating screw-up, one that left the administration with plenty of egg on its face. Team Trump showed this kind of incompetence, many times, from 2017-21, and they are back at it again. The bad news is that this foolishness is going to do a fair bit of damage to the government and to the country. The good news is that it's rather hard to see how a bunch of Klownish Keystone Kops (KKK) like these people could possibly pull off something even remotely resembling a coup. (Z)