Trump halts hiring of federal workers, freezes pay raises


Washington Post


President Trump issued executive orders Monday freezing federal hiring. The hiring freeze excludes national security employees.

A hiring freeze was included in the Trump presidential campaign’s “Contract with the American Voter.” It was the second of six measures “to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, D.C.” and part of his “100-day action plan to Make America Great Again.”

The plan excludes the “military, public safety, and public health.”

Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration was accelerating hiring to get employees in place before Trump took over. But


individuals hired, but who have not yet started working, still could be affected by a freeze.

In an August 1981 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in National Treasury Employees Union v. Ronald Reagan, the court ruled that anyone who had been appointed after Election Day, but had not yet started work, were affected by the retroactive freeze because they had not actually become federal employees. It found that a small number of workers among the plaintiff group, however, had begun to perform official work functions and therefore could make a claim based on the standard civil service protections that federal employees hold.

In 1982, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined hiring freezes imposed by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and determined that was not an effective strategy.

Hiring freezes have “little effect on Federal employment levels,” the GAO said. The report said the freezes “disrupted agency operations, and in some cases, increased costs to the Government.”

Staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this story.

link please

Next thing you hear will be "the sky is falling".


Anybody know if this will affect inter-agency transfers as well as new hires?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/

Give 1/2 of the government workers a job building and repairing roads and bridges at that pay rate.

If they don't want that... Adios!

I thought a third of them were going to quit if he was elected. Felt that was a good start.

Another promise kept, Yep he's a democrat in disguise.......

Cut half of them, wonder how many Obama people are out looking for work??

Good.

after doing that, he needs to tell the remainder, "concentrate on what adds value for the citizens. Help me get rid of everything else"

Some percentage of Federal workers retire every year. Guessing it might be 3-5%. Keep the freeze in place until total federal employment is down 20-30%.

even a liberal should be able to recognize that the Federal Government, as well as all State and Local Governments are vastly over staffed.

I can tell you for a fact not all agencies are.

He probably did this to use it as a bargaining chip. In other words, take something they already have and give it back to them in exchange for something they don't want to give him. It's smart. This is the kind of thing the liberals have been doing to the Republicans for decades.

That would mean they would actually have to do WORK instead of sitting on their azzes viewing porn and drinking coffee. Poor dears just wouldn't hack it even for a day.

Better yet, offer them a job at that rate building the Southern wall at no net labor cost increase.

Which ones?

They may be understaffed to do what their job requires. The question is ,how necessary is that job in the first place.

Good question.

I suspect with about a 2 year abolishment of all govt. agencies, we would get to the root of what we really need.

I also think we'd be greatly surprised that we don't even notice the vast majority are gone.

There's a lot of ignorance when it comes to understanding federal jobs and the benefits that go with them.

99% of the people that think they know everything about those f'ing lazy government employees also probably think Congressman (women) get full pensions for serving four years and they retire with a 100% pension. etc. etc.

Are there lazy government workers - YES
Are there lazy workers in the private sector - YES
Is there waste in government offices - YES Depending on which office/organization the waste varies. Same goes for the private sector.

These hiring freezes are completely stupid and the people that think they are good, really don't understand everything involved.

How is someone 10-20 levels removed really know what I might do or what someone else might do? Set staffing level caps and let agencies move people around as needed.

How many people that have chimed in so far are on social security? The way a hard hiring freeze can play out is that all those people that might help you, now retired but because they can no longer be replaced, well tough chit.


I manage a small government office with a staff of four. I was given the option to hire on a fifth a couple years ago. 3-4 months out of the year, I could use that fifth person. I end up doing my techs work quite often along with my own job at times and I'll come in and work extra hours to do my own job over the weekend, or bring my work home. I'd just assume be busy than have people sitting around though or sitting around myself. So I'm not complaining, just don't pretend to know my position and label people or positions you don't know.

In my position we do about 15-20 million in marketing loans each year and while the interest from those loans is low, they also cover my salary and my staff and basically all of the overhead my office incurs. I also have on had probably another 2-3 million in facility loans.

I also play a large part of any disaster assistance and getting emergency loans available if the need arises.

Tornado wipes out your house, too bad. Flood washes it away and you need help, too bad. I'm just a lazy ass government employee.

I had a lot of the same misconceptions before I started working for the government and maybe I'm wrong but I actually think I contribute a lot more to society than a lot of other people. Maybe not as much as some, but a hell of a lot more than a lot of others I know and have worked with.

FYI: Most government employees are on the FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System). I contribute 3.1% I believe?

With 20-30 years of service, they'll retire with approx. 20-30% pension. We also contribute into a system similar to any 401K Thrift Savings Plan) with a 5% match. Congress really isn't any different.

Is that better than some people, yeah it is. Are you going to get rich, NO.


I should go on record, I think Congress does a horse chit job but again all the talk of them retiring with full pensions that are in the six figures is a crock of chit.

In addition, if anyone is thinking... You do that many dollars in loans, but how many are bad?

I have one bad loan in the last three years and I'll be collecting on that in the coming week when un-fortunatly I will foreclose and have to line up the grain to be hauled. That's not even in my area, but will be assisting another office to correct the issue.

One other outstanding receivable I have for about 8 grand I just set up a promissory note this past week and will have that paid in full within this coming year.

I take my job very seriously and have been recognized both publicly and officially for doing so.

The government should not be in the flood insurance, disaster insurance, or loaning money business.

We have charitable organizations, insurance companies, and banks for that.

A lot of guys would be out of business if it wasn't for Federal crop insurance, drought/disaster aid, etc..

Understood.

It just should be a private sector responsibility.

A LOT of them get rich playing the system too.

Has Trump finished hiring all of the White House staff or others he will need to run his administration?

Social Security. Way understaffed for the workload.

[/quote]

Social Security. Way understaffed for the workload. [/quote]

If they pulled all of the agents off from doing Obummer deeds they would have a lot more workers to do the real work that needs to be done.

This a huge eff up.
Wait until getting a tax stamp for a suppressor takes a couple years.
And most Federal agencies are understaffed due to the Sequestration.

The difference is the lazy private sector employees can be fired. The lazy government workers cannot. Big difference.

This 100%

Getting rid of affirmative action and said employees who are not doing their jobs for whatever reason would take a few percentage points off the Federal employment rolls right there.

Hiring freeze, yes. Firing 10% a month of the lazy slugs and wall leaners yes.

Simple answer....legalize em....
Regulating them the way they do doesn't save one fuggin life...all it does is create revenue to pay for the idiots issuing them and take money out of hard working "honest" folks' pockets...

Less regulation and smaller gubment is ALWAYS the answer....

An across the board freeze is indeed a bad deal. Our shop was just getting started on interviews for 4 badly needed positions, and this will eventually require an 18 month do over when priorities are eventually established. It's a great method for driving seriously talented employees away.

About 30 years back I got hired just ahead of a freeze. Other newbies got off a plane to report the next day and found they had no job.

1minute - - - when I was in the Marines we always were underfunded and undermanned, but we accomplished our mission successfully anyway. There were no excuses for not accomplishing our mission. Civilian federal workers have to do the same thing. We can't afford our current government.

free interprise has ups and downs

30 year federal employee? Now I understand why you were so adamantly against the Malheur Occupation. Hit close to home.

Gotta start somewhere and over time balance will come. It'll be painful for those whose bread is buttered by Uncle Sugar.

How about we get rid of the effing requirement for a tax stamp for a suppressor-problem solved.

Yeah but you were allowed to kill those who got in your way!






Thanks for your service.

Fed Govt worker here...and as much as I think this hiring freeze is dumb, I would LOVE to see the rules changed to make it easier to fire some of the govt workers that NEED to be fired. Right now, it is easier and cheaper to just let them retire.

I've worked with completely useless and incompetent private sector workers and govt workers. The "good" govt people do a lot more for folks like us on this site than a lot of people think.

Now that's just stupid on several levels. Huge difference between what an active duty person can be forced to do and what a civilian can. The federal government already pays less for certain professionals. Treating them more like [bleep] won't retain the good ones and won't get better work out of the bad ones. Also, just because you were treated like [bleep] doesn't mean it was right and should be continued. Next you will be complaining about the VA not doing something for you, even though they are understaffed and not able to hire new employees.

Did not say that. The past 30 years have included military, 10 years of college, private, federal, and state. Not seen everything, but I've seen a lot.

Speaking of the Occupation, they should be having their first annual reunion or maybe a reenactment. Probably a cast of thousands on the way. Sadly none of their ilk were successful in the recent elections.

And develop new paperwork and forms and procedures to make their lives "easier" - so they need to hire more help to keep up with the new stuff!

Continuing .gov circle-jerk. Government cancer (uncontrolled growth of cells)

Take Florida, for instance. Want to see a crock full of schit, start studying Florida homeowners' property insurance. Classic case of .gov aiding and abetting white collar insurance criminals and thieves.

Most families around the country would consider what I pay yearly in property insurance a very good yearly household income.

Fuggin ridiculous.

Didn't obamba have 15k new IRS workers hired to admin the ACA?? Wellll, fire their asses posthaste. Voila!!!

A hiring freeze is an okay stop gap solution but a bad long term one. The long term solution has already been brought up regarding silencers.

Reduce the size of government overall, get rid of any government program that is not essential* along with tons and tons of regulations and you won't need as many people to do the work.

Government workers run the same gamut as the private sector - mostly. You have your small percentage of top performers, a larger percentage of dead weight and the rest fall in between. Due to affirmative action and the difficulty of firing the dead weight the bottom tier is probably bigger than it is in private life but it doesn't mean all government workers are useless.

As to which programs are necessary and which aren't, lots of people feed off of the government teat. The people that benefit from those programs are not all worthless leeches either, but they have gotten used to sucking on that teat. Taking it away is the painful side of downsizing government but it has to be done. We can't keep taking money from everybody, filtering it through a huge amount of labyrinthine regulations and giving out a smaller part of it to fewer people. That's what's gotten us where we are.

Besides, if there is money to be made offering a service or product that the government now offers someone will assuredly take up the slack to make that money and they'll do it in a competitive market where they have to be efficient to stay in business. Private employers with private employees paying taxes instead of public employees eating up those taxes is a win-win. And if no one takes up the slack for a cut program it means there was no real demand for it in the first place.

And that's just talking about government provided services. We haven't even started looking at the mountain of regulations and red tape the government has piled up on the backs of private business. How many people does the government employ just to guarantee that all of the proper forms are posted on break room bulletin boards nationwide? I'm sure a lot of folks here can give examples of stuff they do just to fill out government mandated reports or meet some other ill thought out, one size fits all regulation.


Just reduce the amount of government programs- and really reduce the amount of regulations piled on the private sector - and you automatically reduce the need for so many people to run and administer them.





*obviously not the military or something like that, we have look at each program and not toss out everything willy nilly.