Firing America: The Federal Worker Purge and the Illusion of Efficiency

Public Service Under Siege: From Public Service to Public Scapegoat – The D.O.G.E. Playbook

A federal judge today temporarily blocked a plan that was to go into effect midnight tonight, to force 2,000,000 federal workers to decide whether to resign their jobs, or to stay on past a government-imposed deadline and risk getting fired.

The current government buyout terms provide that if the workers decide to resign, they will receive a severance, but they may still have to work and can’t seek another job while they are considered to be on the payroll even if they are not working.

But the court could rule that the proposed reduction in force occurred in a manner violating federal law.

In this case the workers who resigned might want to return to work, except their jobs, may have been eliminated, in lightning speed. If a court disqualifies the severance plan, the now unemployed workers who agreed to resign are out of luck.

If a federal worker declines to resign, their position could still be eliminated and he or she, in practice, could be fired, if firings are determined to be legal.

The wholesale buyout/firings are so unprecedented, and so confusing, that many federal workers are being advised to not take the “buy outs,” which might prove to be illusory as well as illegal.

This confusion all comes about as a result of a Department of Government Efficiency, abbreviated to the initials D.O.G.E -- and pronounced any way you like -- and operating in a way you will not like if you happen to be a federal worker, or a believer in the U.S. Constitution.

Where is the corruption and inefficiency in government?

It is in propagating wars of choice costing the taxpayers at least EIGHT TRILLION dollars, since 9/11. It is in contracting fraud, mostly in various forms of so-called “foreign assistance,” costing US taxpayers hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars. It is in fraud, embezzlement and outright theft of US tax dollars sent abroad to the tune of hundreds of MILLIONS annually. USAID, for example, was famous for theft and misapplication of government resources, including funds used for CIA “activities.” Those activities need to be stopped. But don’t stop feeding starving people.

Pentagon contractors have certainly not been starving. In one of my first congressional hearings, in 1997, as a member of the Government Oversight committee, an Inspector General for the Department of Defense, testified that there were over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in DOD accounts that could not be reconciled.

Meanwhile, then and now, longtime civil servants generally put their heads down and keep working for the American people, regardless of changes in the Administration. This time they are faced with losing not only their jobs, but watching their lives crumble, in the name of an efficiency which is misdirected and unconcerned about the morality and the humanity of how a great government should treat the people who comprise the government.

As a former chair of a congressional investigative subcommittee, I witnessed and uncovered significant waste, fraud and abuse inside the government and in private sector contractual relations with the United States. But, through 16 years in Congress, I also witnessed countless federal workers who love this country, have dedicated their lives and worked long and hard to be of service to the people of the United States. They honorably did their duty and delivered when people needed help.

My excellent Congressional staff handled at least 11,000 requests for service, yearly. Our office was engaged with federal workers in dozens of agencies on an hour-by-hour basis to make government work for the people.

Over a period of sixteen years, diligent federal workers have intervened in all these cases and as a result changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of my constituents for the better.

Government of the people, by the people and for the people is not just a phrase lifted from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, it is a promise fulfilled on a daily basis by our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, by our neighbors and friends who chose a career in the federal government at a fair wage, in exchange for a measure of job security, so they and their families can have security in their lives.

Federal workers are the government. Their success is measured by dedicated service. They make government real. They make government work for the people.

Are there some federal employees who do not do their jobs, who are just picking up a paycheck? Yes, but they are few and far between. Personnel management policies and procedures ought to exist to eliminate those government workers who are unwilling to perform to the best of their ability. The taxpayers have a right to expect the best.

But the wholesale dismissal of a significant part of the federal workforce in the name of government efficiency demands a much closer look and a defensible evaluation and explanation of the objectives and methods.

Prior to the notice given to 2 million government workers, there has been no analysis of work responsibilities, workflow, supervision, key personnel, or, most importantly, if and how services delivered to the American people would be adversely impacted.

The attempt to apply corporate values to the government workforce represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of government and its purpose:

The main purpose of government is service.

The private sector might provide service, but its motivating driving force is profit. That is why corporations can lay off thousands and thousands of workers, without shedding a tear, because the calculations are all about the bottom line, profit. If $100 Billion is cut from the federal payroll, without full and careful consideration, that might just mean a $100 Billion reduction in service. Period.

The question arises, if we are not getting service for our tax dollars, what are we getting?

Are taxes for America’s middle class going to be reduced by $100 billion? If two million people are forced on unemployment at some point in the next year, the overall economy which relies on consumer spending, will be adversely affected, raising the jobless rate by about a 1.5%.

Federal jobs could be eliminated in the name of workforce efficiency. Increasing worker productivity is a good thing. But pushing destruction of government service under the term “efficiency” has consequences. It is creeping totalitarianism, think Soviet-style central planning, when individual rights are trampled, dissent is crushed, human dignity abandoned, questions go unanswered, and power is centralized.