Trump Offers Buyouts to Federal Employees in Bid to Cut Workforce | Hacker News Reader

Trump Offers Buyouts to Federal Employees in Bid to Cut Workforce

wsj.com

22 pointsm348e91228 comments

The Reddit thread has supposed screen shots of the email:

https://old.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1icfqi5/voluntary_...

It has the same vibe as the email Elon sent to twitter employees soon after the buyout.

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/musk-to-begin-layoffs-of...

Is that kind of financial-decision something the President can reliably promise under current law, as opposed to needing Congressional involvement?

Does it apply to people dismissed because the President demanded to know how they voted and didn't like the answer?

>President can reliably promise under current law, as opposed to needing Congressional involvement?

I don't think so and your question was not addressed in the article.

Seems like very biased and irresponsible reporting.

>Does it apply to people dismissed because the President demanded to know how they voted and didn't like the answer?

Good point - I would expect they get nothing.

> I would expect they get nothing.

A Not-Actually-Fun-Fact I learned today: Even the Nazis doing their early purge of the German government [0] still found it necessary to offer 3 months of severance and 3/4ths continued pension.

[0] The 1933 legislation was against "officials whose previous political activities do not guarantee that they will always be fully committed to the national state."

The president is the head of the executive branch so technically he can make the decision to implement a new work policy. That doesn't mean it won't be challenged and that the courts won't have an opportunity to overturn it.

Procedurally it reminds me when the Biden administration issued a mandate for federal workers and federal contractors to be vaccinated for Covid 19. That mandate was ultimately blocked and overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-mandate-federal-w...

If Elmo is involved in this, you might want to get those 8 months of pay upfront.

I always wonder why people create these ridiculous nicknames. Are there maybe more children on this site than I thought?

Act like a reasonable adult and people will be nice to you and call your by your given (or chosen) name.

I think the change in standards of presidential discourse have affected how we talk to each other; e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Dona....

Trump is hardly an example to follow, but you’re probably right.

Ya, but Trump is also the kind of person who doesn’t like to be called names but likes calling people names. A lot of people are going to feel compelled to lean into that.

It is going to be a long 4 years.

Wait. You think the problem is "children" on the VC cult website?

You see no issues with the CEO of five companies who bought his way into U.S. politics and being a complete clown show of K-hole takes that go against everything the Constitution was written to hold as sacred being criticized for his BS?

Cool.

Nicknames help us deal with the reality of an Apartheid cult gaining influence on our government.

I think it's partly down to Twitter. On Twitter there are or were certain names (and Elon Musk was one of the worst) which it was unwise to say, because those people have hordes of weird obsessive fans who search for the name of their beloved, and pop in to sealion. Thus, nicknames. Not really a factor here, of course.

Trump has a long history of not paying people too. He even balks at paying for the location of his rallies.

Suffice to say, not a very trustworthy pair.

Federal workers have until February 6th to decide to either return to office or take a payout that includes pay and benefits through September 30th.

https://archive.is/J2PjY

This sort of approach has the effect of getting rid of your best employees, not your worst. Those who can go find other work will take the offer and go. Those who can't will stay.

Does a budget for the payouts exist?

If not, this is a misleading headline.

The federal fiscal year ends Sept 31, so it's possible that funding will remain in place until that time. We will see!

The federal government is not allowed to pay more than 25000 unless Trump is proposing legislation to change this that is not mentioned. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restruct...

I think severed employees are expected to continue to work from home through Sept 31. This doesn't appear to be a complete one-time payout.

Pretty sure our government isn't advanced enough to make Severance real. I am also confident that the current Administration would fumble if given the chance.

It's actually more of a deferred resignation. I think even the US gov't can handle that.

Title is clickbait. It's a buyout for workers that refuse to RTO.

The official statement verbatim:

"After four years of incompetence and failure, President Donald Trump is committed to making our government efficient and productive again. American taxpayers pay for the salaries of federal government employees and therefore deserve employees working on their behalf who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers. If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of eight months."

The title is straight from the WSJ, HN doesn't allow you to editorialize titles.

dang will editorialize any titles that don't fit YC's agenda. Some titles are even automatically edited upon submission.

That's up to dang. I'm just doing what I'm told :)

I'm pointing out that WSJ's title is clickbait.

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