CIA staffers offered buyout deals to resign | Hacker News Reader

CIA staffers offered buyout deals to resign

wsj.com

42 pointsanigbrowl30 comments

Reuters article submission to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943395

One of the rare instances of recursion on HN

The coup is well underway. Public reaction is not yet reflecting the gravity of the situation.

The public is actively being distracted by big headlines regarding tariffs, what country / area Trump wants to take over, and stuff like that.

I'm not American.

Are these people not concerned of the effects of emptying out CIA and FBI?

No, emptying them out is the goal (the reasons why vary depending on who you ask)

U S govt at least 25% too big.

Based on what specific evidence?

Runaway Federal debt.

Literally you could fire ever single federal employee and you'd still have a deficit (3,000,000 * $106,382 = 319 billion [1]).

It's not even really close, 319 billion is ~1/6 of the deficit [2].

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/07/what-the-...

[2]: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107714

Those sliver-of-a-budget grunt workers do quite a bit of disbursements of US taxpayers money.

1) Firing people doesn't stop disbursement. Especially if they're something low-level like idk a security guard.

2) Disbursement is done because Congress told them to with a law. If you want less disbursement then repeal the law.

Must have missed the many Congress laws that can suspend such a disbursement by various parties of the Executive Branch: immediate, 7-day, 15-day, 90-day, reallocated, indefinite.

> Those sliver-of-a-budget grunt workers do quite a bit of disbursements of US taxpayers money.

They also do quite a bit of collecting taxes and (when allowed to by the GOP) do audits of tax cheats.

They also patrol borders. They also maintain military equipment. They also inspect food. Etc.

I just feel the cutting has to start someplace and with Trump not having to be elected again he has nothing to lose. I am sure a Democrat will win next term to try to right things. Trump is mart enough to see there is a problem but not smart enough to get in and fix it. It is like a farmer burning the fields for next season. Democrats will have a field to build back better on.

Three decades to build back better.

How's that debt reduction working so far?

I think the war in Iraq really cost a lot of money and we have to pay for it here. Might as well start with Trump doing some slashing and burning. We will have build up from the ground up again.

We have to do this by choice rather than having it because our hand is forced. It's not a choice anybody wants, but it'll be less pain now than later.

I know republicans created these wars but now we just are all going to have to take the pain. Trump is starting with other people taking the pain first.

> Might as well start with Trump doing some slashing and burning. We will have build up from the ground up again.

Well, there's two ways to get a balanced budget.

1) You could increase the tax rate as was done for pretty much every single other war. This of course is not going to happen.

2) You have to lower expenses. The problem with this is that we know the US Budget and unless you cut anything from the big 3 (Defense, Social Security, Medicaid) you cannot have a balanced budget. The deficit is about ~1.75 Trillion per-year. Federal Employee Salaries is about 320 Billion/yr so you'd literally have to fire everybody and stop all non-big 3 spending (~1.5 Trillion) to have a balanced budget this way.

This is the problem, the approach is just not going to work and is going to cause a bunch of problems for the economy as it's enacted.

> Runaway Federal debt.

The three largest line items in the US federal budget are:

* Social Security

* Medicare

* Pentagon

Of the three only the Pentagon is discretionary:

* https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-does-federal-g...

Which one(s) do you want to cut?

Further, after COVID's bump, US federal outlays/spending have generally been coming down to history averages (20% of GDP):

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

But deficits are growing:

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSDFYGDP

The difference between the two trends means income is the problem.

Has the GOP tried not cutting taxes and then complaining about not having enough money?

Common sense

They are not. In their defense, these people are imbeciles.

The people who voted for this to happen were told that the Cia and fbi are part of the "deep state" that stole the last election away from Trump and have been attempting to unjustly prosecute him for made up crimes

It’s not about emptying them out so much as replacing them with loyalists.

* https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-sec...

* https://archive.is/MpHyC

Probably not the first time that a "stash drop" is used as the final paycheck, ... or something.

Sounds like a attack by foreign powers to me

or it's a part of the great purge

Uncle putin wants them gone

1. CIA overthrew Yanukovych and set fire to Donbas

2. Russia-Ukraine war

3. Endless fiscal support to Ukraine and Inflation

4. Fiscal crisis and Trump's 2rd term

5. Karma is a biatch

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