Doubt this will impact agencies...

[Bonasababy]

Starlink. Thats all.

Satellite systems--Completely unreliable. That's fact. Everyone I know who tried them dropped them. Not sure if they have improved today--but we are talking 4-5 years back, not today. Not everyone lives in big sky country with a direct line of unobstructed site towards satellites.

I know a number of teachers who had to--and were glad to--be very accomodating to students and their families on timelines for attendance or making things up when they could get a signal that was stable.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

That would not be a bad thing. I am a bit concerned that this is really more of an effort to “own” certain groups of people to score political points and less about actually saving the country money. We are about to find out I guess.

Could be disastrous or could be great.

 

[SAJ-99]

I'm really just excited to see how all this plays out down the road. Mini snow globe Rome was built in a day but Rome was not. It might be disastrous or it might be great. At least some kind of effort to curb government spending is being tried that actually has a chance to have an affect. It's been a week, departments need evaluated and combed through and have needed to be since after WW2. I wish the federal funding freeze was not so broad, as it affects my wife and current projects they have going on that need to be done before the water comes. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.

Does it matter? The game plan is good or bad, just declare victory.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Does it matter? The game plan is good or bad, just declare victory.

You already came to your conclusion 8 years ago regardless of the actual outcomes.

 

[Bonasababy]

I enjoy how this thread turned into a WFH or RTO debate, which completely misses the point. The lawyers will have fun with that.

As has been pointed out...
1) In a Voluntary RIF, the people that quit are never the lazy slackers. They are the people most able to find another job or closest to retirement. Say goodbye to knowledge and efficiency.
2) Having gone through a couple of these in the corporate world, the positions are typically refilled in 24 months. I doubt this will be much different.
3) the entire point of this is the $100B cost saving estimate. They need to find budget reductions in order to make 2017 tax cuts permanent. I would guess once those are permanent, the hiring will restart (hence the 8months time frame). In the end, if we are lucky it will be net to $0. Like most political/government actions, I figure it will most likely it will cost taxpayers.

The missing link is that--NOTHING has contributed more to the deficit growth increase than reduced taxes.

Nothing.

They can't find enough to cut to make up for that. You can cut out entire federal agencies and not make much of a dent. And not only do they want to extend the Trump cuts they want to increase them.

Why are they doing this? You all can be the judge....

Trump has tapped an unprecedented 13 billionaires for his administration. Here's who they are

President-elect Donald Trump has assembled the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history, with at least 13 billionaires set to take top government posts.

abcnews.go.com

 

[SAJ-99]

You already came to your conclusion 8 years ago regardless of the actual outcomes.

Oh, not at all. Not on outcomes. If something works, great. If it doesn't, I perfer someone own it and try something else. The problem is that results on these things are very rarely black or white, good or bad. But, I wait with high anticipation for this show to get rolling.

 

[TheJason]

If this was about increasing efficiency and service I’d be on board, provided it was done within the confines of policy, law, and CBA.

I see this as a vehicle to fund tax cuts at the expense of federal agencies, and providing justification for eliminating some said agencies.

I’m not directly affected by this, but many of us will be indirectly affected very soon.

 

[JDH]

There's too many posts to quote but my wife has seen both sides of this as a civilian for the DoD. When she was with the fed govt, her main complaints were people not doing their job, everyone else's workload was increasing, and a little bit about the commute. She started out in one building, then had to move to another one due to mold and other issues. There was one guy who would go out to his car and sleep, maybe working 4 hours a day. Then one guy who didn't get fired until he made a death threat, or the engineer who's been a GS8/9 for 20 years because he just skates by. They adopted a hybrid system and she was able to work from home 2 days a week. There was discussion about reducing their office footprint by coordinating days at the office and sharing desks but she left before that became an issue. Now she's full remote in the private sector, I think 99% of her company is full remote and she loves it. It's not without fault though. She did have 2 issues with people working 2 jobs at the same time and not performing. She works more hours now because her computer is always nearby. Even before the election, some of her former coworkers were reaching out because they want to leave the fed govt. Her current company has a job open and they've been waiting to post it until now, hoping this announcement would bring more applicants.

 

[rogerthat]

I'm really just excited to see how all this plays out down the road. Mini snow globe Rome was built in a day but Rome was not. It might be disastrous or it might be great. At least some kind of effort to curb government spending is being tried that actually has a chance to have an affect. It's been a week, departments need evaluated and combed through and have needed to be since after WW2. I wish the federal funding freeze was not so broad, as it affects my wife and current projects they have going on that need to be done before the water comes. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.

I think thinking this is to curb spending might be wrong thinking. Fed employee wages is 4% of the budget. So a 25% cut in employees results in 1% overall budget savings. Don’t misconstrue this post, I’m all for saving money where we can in the fed budget but I think this ploy is probably more designed to disable govt. saving money would be much easier done by looking at the programs administered which is where the real money is

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Oh, not at all. Not on outcomes. If something works, great. If it doesn't, I perfer someone own it and try something else. The problem is that results on these things are very rarely black or white, good or bad. But, I wait with high anticipation for this show to get rolling.

Net good at best probably.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

I think thinking this is to curb spending might be wrong thinking. Fed employee wages is 4% of the budget. So a 25% cut in employees results in 1% overall budget savings. Don’t misconstrue this post, I’m all for saving money where we can in the fed budget but I think this ploy is probably more designed to disable govt. saving money would be much easier done by looking at the programs administered which is where the real money is

I think they are looking at the programs to. Which is where any kind of significant savings would come from.

 

[shrapnel]

Well I'll be. I would have guessed that you of all people shrap, with your rugged rural old-timey lifestyle (minus the 'vet and suburban rambler) would have seen the value in kids staying how and being kids again, after all, "never let schooling get in the way of your education"

View attachment 358760

My rugged individualism isn’t the issue, it’s the rest of societal evolution that has deteriorated. School used to be a place of education, and has now turned into a day care, so parents can continue being bad parents and worse if you think they could home school…

 

[sclancy27]

Here just some interesting numbers.

In 2023 total for federal employees was $270 Billion. 60-70% of that was for DOD, Dept of Homeland Security and VA. So those 3 agencies cost $160-180 Billion, the rest, ~$100 billion.

As a percentage, this is 4.4% total and 2.8% and 1.6% respectively of the 2023 budget. (if you correct for the budget if we were net 0, it would be 6% total, 3.8% and 2.2% respectively)

Total govt contracts was $759 billion in 2023....(12.2% of 23' budget)

Social security and Medicare was 50% of the federal budget in 2023.

Federal Deficit for 2023 was 1.7 Trillion

If the goal is a 10% reduction in total (which it isn't, as most of the military, USPS, etc is exempt), you would get to $100 billion in 5 years. Realistically, its 10+ yrs given the agencies they are actually going after.

 

[NDGuy]

If the goal is a 10% reduction in total (which it isn't, as most of the military is exempt)

Why have healthcare when we can have F-35s and Tomahawks?

 

[rogerthat]

I think they are looking at the programs to. Which is where any kind of significant savings would come from.

Would it not make more sense to cut the programs first? Seems like putting the cart before the horse but I think cutting the programs will prove much more politically challenging as the cuts start to impact individuals outside of the scape goated groups of people. To me this is clearly more about scoring political points than any kind of logical cost cutting effort. Hopefully we eventually get to that part

 

[Forkyfinder]

Satellite systems--Completely unreliable. That's fact. Everyone I know who tried them dropped them. Not sure if they have improved today--but we are talking 4-5 years back, not today. Not everyone lives in big sky country with a direct line of unobstructed site towards satellites.

I know a number of teachers who had to--and were glad to--be very accomodating to students and their families on timelines for attendance or making things up when they could get a signal that was stable.

Not a fact.

Today its great. 4 years ago. Also great.

 

[sclancy27]

Would it not make more sense to cut the programs first? Seems like putting the cart before the horse but I think cutting the programs will prove much more politically challenging as the cuts start to impact individuals outside of the scape goated groups of people. To me this is clearly more about scoring political points than any kind of logical cost cutting effort. Hopefully we eventually get to that part

No shit

 

[Bonasababy]

I think they are looking at the programs to. Which is where any kind of significant savings would come from.

Nope. The entire department of education? Cutting the whole program and every person in it? 4% of the federal budget.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/permanently-extending-the-trump-tax-cuts-would-cost-4-trillion-over-the-next-decade/

 

[INMT]

I wish the federal funding freeze was not so broad, as it affects my wife and current projects they have going on that need to be done before the water comes. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.

The list is staggering. Is there some pork in there? Of course. If they have their way with the sledgehammer though, this can fundamentally change the USA, and not for the better IMO. As stated before, it probably won’t noticeably reduce the deficit, but it will help fund tax cuts.

Just a tiny fraction of programs I saw:

Wildlife Services, wolf/livestock predation, Pacific coast salmon recovery, basic hunter ed and safety, migratory birds, national wildlife refugees, hazardous fuel reduction, habitat restoration and far too many more to name.

I would personally rather fund these programs than help pad a billionaires pocket book.

 

[sclancy27]

The list is staggering. Is there some pork in there? Of course. If they have their way with the sledgehammer though, this can fundamentally change the USA, and not for the better IMO. As stated before, it probably won’t noticeably reduce the deficit, but it will help fund tax cuts.

Just a tiny fraction of programs I saw:

Wildlife Services, wolf/livestock predation, Pacific coast salmon recovery, basic hunter ed and safety, migratory birds, national wildlife refugees, hazardous fuel reduction, habitat restoration and far too many more to name.

I would personally rather fund these programs than help pad a billionaires pocket book.

A normal person has no idea how many industries are dependent on Federal Funding at this point. Look at construction and IRA, etc $$$. The tentacles are everywhere regardless of whether you believe they are or not.