Federal shooting smart, which grew over the past week, escalated last Friday and continued throughout the holiday weekend.
Almost all of those fired are “probation” employees, and those who are usually awarded to new workers, switch status, institutions, and recently promoted employees have less protection against removal.
Reports about how many people were fired and where and how many were. However, I know some details.
- Approximately 400 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) workers focused on research, science and management support.
- Approximately 3,600 health and human services workers, including at least 750 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees, at least 1,000 National Institute of Health Workers and 750 Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
- At least 400 Homeland Security employees, including 200 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees.
- It includes about 2,300 people at the Ministry of Home Affairs, 800 people at the Land Management Bureau and 1,000 people at the National Park Service.
- More than 3,000 Forest Service employees of the Department of Agriculture.
- More than 1,000 veteran issues experts.
- At least 300 Environmental Protection Agency workers.
- More than 1,500 NASA employees (10% of the agency's workforce).
In some accounts, the shooting process was a coincidence process. For example, probation employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which controls U.S. nuclear weapons, were asked to return to work after being fired.
The Trump administration argued that these cuts (and more) were necessary to reduce federal spending and reduce bloated bureaucracy.
However, the latest forced cuts are unlikely to provide taxpayers with large savings and could put government duties at risk to protect citizens.
For example, consider the VA's claim that its end would save $98 million a year. That's a lot of money for me, but that represents just 0.00145% of the $6.75 trillion spent by the federal government in 2024. Celebrating that cut is like I jump for joy as I managed to move something forward at the grocery store and save a tenth of a penny. Certainly it saved money, but it's not a significant amount of money in practice.
The point is that it is a point that others have done. The US needs to make massive cuts rather than one million, not one million, if they want to tighten their belts quite a bit. This requires reducing spending on expensive programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and defense.
Now, another argument: the government is too big.
Just like VA savings, they represent a part of the federal workforce. The latest layoffs were cut with the previous round and the roughly 75,000 people who made government takeover offers, if less than 4% of the government's 2.4 million workforce was cut.
That means the government is still quite large. The good news about that is that it means that government services are unlikely to keel tomorrow. My worries are the day after tomorrow.
We are not out of fire season. Fire professionals and forest department workers have expressed great concern that they do not have the talent to keep their communities safe.
“This season will only be a disaster to deal with wildfires,” a forest department firefighter told Stateline.
Spring break and summer travel seasons are also getting faster. It was clear that the FAA did not fire the air traffic controllers, but as I read in this newsletter a few weeks ago, aviation experts say that our flight system is just too much. I think there is.
“Flight operations are like rubber bands right now,” Daniel Ajekum of the University of North Dakota told me recently. “And we'll keep pulling it.”
And it's not just about fire and flight issues. Disasters that require full attention from FEMA can occur at any time. The CDC may need to take action over a new pandemic. Federal agencies were already struggling to control the avian flu.
It is impossible to tell you right now what the effect of these cuts is and whether things will be as bad as they are claiming now. But the worry is, as things go south due to a shortage of people, it's too late.
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