Don’t misunderstand me: I am thrilled with the new administration and especially the meat cleaver known as DOGE. I am a taxpayer and a conservative, and there is so much wrong with how much money the federal establishment has squandered for decades to promote and commit policies to which I am diametrically opposed and by which I am profoundly offended — some of which are even outright illegal.
But when the Trump wrecking-ball dust settles and we have our small, efficient, dream government in place, it will still need to be administered by somebody. Many of those somebodies are already there. They have been there for as little as a few months but in some cases for decades, steadfastly and patriotically serving their country through various administrations, doing their jobs, and accumulating institutional knowledge. And not all of that institutional knowledge is rotten.
In fact, some of these people have earned our deep and abiding respect — especially employees and civilian contractors in the DOD and certain law enforcement offices. And now, they are being treated like prodigal children by a squad of teenagers and twenty-somethings who may be brilliant but who are perhaps lacking in wisdom and, dare I say, foresight.
The layoffs themselves aren’t the problem. Anyone who has worked outside of government can relate to layoffs; when your employer isn’t making enough money to pay you, she can’t pay you. End of story. The government hasn’t been making enough money since the Newt Gingrich days to pay its way, so there’s that. But the way the layoffs are being administered is galling to those who have worked hard and played by the rules. These are the people who witnessed up-close the sin of government waste, fraud, and abuse and who emphatically voted for Trump and DOGE. We want to keep them on board.
These are ethical people who bristle at being treated as though they are untrustworthy. They are conservatives who recoil at broken contracts. They are frugal plan-ahead types who are offended by the wastefulness of smashing up half-completed projects in which significant resources have already been invested.
Among those who have not been laid off, the uncertainty and the spending crackdowns are galling.
“The Defense Department has put a spending freeze on civilian employees’ government credit cards, according to two memos issued Tuesday and Wednesday, forcing department civilians to cancel all scheduled non-essential travel and return from any trips in progress ‘as soon as feasible,’ and reducing spending limits on government purchase cards to $1,” military sector newser Defense One reported last week. “The memos follow a Feb. 26 executive order announcing an initiative from the Department of Government Efficiency, a White House advisory board, to rein in government spending.”
The article gives an example of a major industry conference that was significantly diminished by the abrupt blanket orders:
“Currently, exempted DOD civilian employee travel only includes travel in direct support of military operations or a permanent change of station,” according to the memo from Darin Selnick, the department’s interim personnel boss.
[…]
The annual Air and Space Forces Association symposium in Colorado this week saw spare attendance, due to an Air Force-directed moratorium on travel.
“Attendance has been limited to individuals with a direct role in the conference such as speakers, moderators, panel members, award winners and their supervisors, senior leaders with previously scheduled industry engagements, and local participants that attend at no cost,” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to Defense One.
Then there is the massive disruption caused by the spending freeze:
A second memo, signed Tuesday by Steven Morani, the interim head of Pentagon acquisition and sustainment, temporarily reduces the spending limit on all government purchase cards to $1.
Those cards are used to streamline the acquisition process for everything from office supplies to non-tactical vehicles.
Any purchasing initiated on or before Feb. 26 “will cease as soon as feasible within the bounds of the law,” according to the memo.
The memo gave cardholders until April 9 to wind down any existing contracts and subscriptions, and it did allow exceptions for disaster relief operations and “actions determined to be critical to that Component’s mission” on a case-by-case basis, though. But of course, the devil is in the details. April 9 is also the deadline for all DOD organs to produce lists of “civilian and uniformed personnel whose jobs don’t necessitate access to a purchase card,” according to Defense One.
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I do get it: There is SO MUCH to do and such a compressed timeframe in which to do it. Strategically, cuts and reductions would ideally be done within a year so there is time for the dust to settle and benefits to become apparent before the crucial midterm elections. So yes, there is a strong case for swinging the axe indiscriminately then hiring back surgically.
But by the time we get to the hiring-back phase, many of the people who had been on our side and who would be perfect for those reopened positions may have soured on the administration. Perhaps we can rely on these people not souring on their own values and ethics, however, in which case the smaller, tighter, more ethical government will still be their chosen career path. But how many of them will have moved on to lucrative private-sector jobs by then? How many of them will have reconsidered their political support of what they now see as a blunt, disrespectful, and shortsighted administration?
This is supposed to be an American revolution, not a French one. Just saying.
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