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[iammeiam]

If he's going to do this and news agencies are going to report on it, I want to see numbers presented as how many Mar-a-lago weekends each reduction pays for.

Trump has to be one of the most personally wasteful Presidents with tax payer money, ever, and any cost cutting measures he tries should be presented in context of how much money he's essentially burning for his own comfort.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Literally the first thing I thought of was an outside consultant who came in to "fix" the business. Basically anyone who's ever had to deal with this knows they trade short term productivity gains for long term problems, generally by blowing up structures designed to take care of those very long term problems.

That's the GOP for you. Sacrifice everything for short-term profits.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

"run the govt like a business"

reminder: new execs like to come in and torch all the old BUs and programs to install their own


also can safely bet those supposedly redundant workforce programs deal with different areas and stages of the workforce.

edit: plus these places run programs important to getting Republicans re-elected, Congress ain't gonna play

This so much.

I'm surprised anyone would be happy with this.

Also, this sounds like a classic, "I can't fire you, so I'll make every position redundant, create new posts and fill them back up with who I want" stuff.

Nobody like the guy investors bring in to do that shit, and that guy will only be looking at numbers. Employees are numbers and customers are just money.

NOBODY likes that guy.

It wouldn't be so bad if voters were the investors, but they're not, the donors are.

The NRA.

The Betsy "here Trump have, millions and millions of dollars" DeVos'.

The best friend McMahons.

The Steve Bannons.

The Trump family members.

Trump's businesses.

Trump's stocks in military contractors.

So far, I think those are the only people who have "won" yet.


You'd think that people's general disdain for the huge imbalance between CEO and average worker would pit them against a CEO with a history of discrimination, thieving and not paying employees wanting to run the country like one of his businesses.

But this is 2017 and people are stupid so.....

 

[Vicetrailia]

Government needs continuous improvement culture, to strive for the Baldrige award or something. That's more effective than combining departments or taking the competely opposite solution of creating a ton of smaller departments.

But him putting all that money towards the military negates any talk of efficiency.

 

[LegendofJoe]

I listened to Chris Hayes on the Ezra Klein podcast from April 4th, and one thing they talk about is how Trump is concerned about standing up for what he views as the common man against the elites. What does elite mean? It's not a billionaire New York real estate developer and reality TV star who is the POTUS, it's morphed into career civil servants making high five/low six figure jobs and living comfortably with reasonable benefit packages.

So when these people lose their jobs, it's okay, because they're "elites."

Yeah, count on Trump to confuse upper middle class people with our actual elites, the people like him and DeVos that make millions a year.

It's yet another symptom of the class warfare the elites like Trump have been waging on the rest of the country. They won't stop until the large majority of us have nothing and the house of cards comes crashing down.

 

[Xe4]

This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions in every way imaginable. If he does go through with his plan, lots of people are going to get laid off, and a lot of government services people rely on will become even worse. I don't think he can do too much, but if he did get what he wanted, there would be riots, as there should be.

 

[jstripes]

This is going to go as well as the development of Windows Vista.

(If you don't know the history of Windows Vista, code-named "Longhorn", look it up.)

 

[SeanC]

I've always felt the government does need to be streamlined, there's a lot of redundancy and way too much bureaucracy (just look at how VA is handled), but I don't trust this Admin to handle any of that or even be capable to wipe its own ass. They're looking to find corners to cut and pockets to line first, not actually find a better way to help people or organize the system in a way to be more efficient.

It's just more Trump lip service - tell people what they want to hear with a simple line or two then do the opposite.

 

[Koomaster]

Trumpy, you can do stupid things!

I actually laughed out loud at the reference, bravo!

 

[Ogodei]

Something like this would run into huge amounts of congressional opposition by default. They can make proposals until the cows come home, they don't have the statutory authority to make many of these changes.

 

[Matsukaze]

Well, this is going to be a catastrophe.

 

[Dude Abides]

The move is a part of Trump’s campaign pledge to "drain the swamp" and get rid of what the administration views as inefficiencies in the federal government, Mulvaney said.

Trying to retcon what "drain the swamp" meant. It was about getting rid of lobbyist influence, not firing civil servants and reorganizing agents. But when half your cabinet comes from Goldman Sachs I guess you have to pretend you never said lobbyists are bad.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Well, this is going to be a catastrophe.

Yep.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Even if you think government needs to be completely rewritten, these are the last people you would EVER want in charge of it.

Fuck these clowns.

I mean, the fact they don't ostensibly have a concrete plan is probably the biggest indicator this is going to be a fiasco. They're just going to let the loudest voices or most laden pockets warp the structure of the government.

 

[Dazzler]

when he talked about "draining the swamp" wasn't that aimed at elected representatives and not staff at the ground floor level? The wording of this makes it seem like the only people being drained will be ones operating front line services

 

[Angelus Errare]

I'm wondering if Trump realizes government workers count towards the unemployment number?

The president is literally saying he wants to raise unemployment, significantly. He actually thinks this is a good idea? To run on higher unemployment?

Republicans don't consider working for the federal government a "real job"; even if you point out to them the federal government employs over 1m military vets (because they really don't give a fuck about vets either)...

 

[Kinitari]

Let's assume for a second that the cuts proposed/implemented would be beneficial for government costs and effeciency.

Some random googled numbers:

4.5ish million federal employees.

85k average salary. Let's say they cut... 1/2 mil jobs? That's saving around 42500000000 a year, which is 42.5billion. I guess that's pretty good.

But... If they actually cut that many jobs, what would happen to those 500k federal employees which, at this point, would have redundant skills? What job would people who write a memo a day be good at fulfilling?

 

[Netherscourge]

So Trump's big plan is a blank sheet of paper for other people to fill out for him.

Sounds just like his Healthcare plan.

 

[Netherscourge]

Let's assume for a second that the cuts proposed/implemented would be beneficial for government costs and effeciency.

Some random googled numbers:

4.5ish million federal employees.

85k average salary. Let's say they cut... 1/2 mil jobs? That's saving around 42500000000 a year, which is 42.5billion. I guess that's pretty good.

But... If they actually cut that many jobs, what would happen to those 500k federal employees which, at this point, would have redundant skills? What job would people who write a memo a day be good at fulfilling?

They can just work the jobs created by deporting all the illegal immigrants.

/s

 

[GreyWind]

He's so presidential.


Edit: sorry wrong thread

 

[Wag]

Kushner will run everything.

 

[thecouncil]

I love how they are trying to re-write "drain the swamp" into just firing run of the mill federal employees and not, you know, cleaning out corrupt self-serving politicos.

Trying to retcon what "drain the swamp" meant. It was about getting rid of lobbyist influence, not firing civil servants and reorganizing agents. But when half your cabinet comes from Goldman Sachs I guess you have to pretend you never said lobbyists are bad.

"Drain the swamp" very quickly became "get rid of liberals" instead of being about corruption. Maybe it always was that to his supporters.

 

[NullPointer]

We think at the end of the day this leads to a government that is dramatically more accountable, dramatically more efficient, and dramatically more effective, following through on the very promises the president made during the campaign and that he put into place on day one.

There is not a single aspect of the Trump administration that could be described as more accountable, more efficient or more effective.

Not a thing.

 

[Amory]

government so small it'll fit on a postcard

file your government on a postcard

 

[Future PhaZe]

Does congress have any say at all in this?

 

[uncelestial]

The gall of doing this when you lost the popular vote by the largest margin in history is stunning.

 

[El_Tiguere]

yup, definitely trying to run government like a corporation

this will go badly

More specifically, trying to have the government run BY corporations.

As a far-left progressive, there is MASSIVE waste and inefficiency in anything government these days, so I'm not opposed to opening up the books at each government agency, to see who are the crooks that have been skimming off of our tax dollars since time immemorial.

With that said, the Ayn Rand pill that Trump/Ryan/GOP want us to swallow is a scary dystopian corporate-run hell hole of every human to him or herself against the profit-hungry wolves.

 

[Stinkles]

so they're going to get rid of all the moquitos in the swamp, but leave the gators and bullfrogs and also the water?

 

[Xando]

But... If they actually cut that many jobs, what would happen to those 500k federal employees which, at this point, would have redundant skills? What job would people who write a memo a day be good at fulfilling?

Well someone has to guard the wall

 

[Future PhaZe]

The only reason he's doing this is because he's got very limited options for funding the shit he wants to do. Cutting the fuck out of government is his only choice since he wants to massively increase military spending and cut taxes.

He can kiss Virginia goodbye with this move moving forward if it comes to pass.

 

[parrotbeak]

How long before we get, "Nobody knew government could be so complicated"?

 

[StrategyFan]

He said the administration is starting with a "blank sheet of paper" as to how the government should operate and has set up a website to solicit ideas.

i guess that's better than a reality gameshow to come up with ideas?

 

[totowhoa]

This could be great or awful.

Unfortunately its going to be the latter.