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Comment by Shank | Hacker News Reader

I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best. Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14, 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.

It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.

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Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.

Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.

Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime.

For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...

The article mentions $2.5MM liens which is drastically less than 1% of expenses of $1445MM ("[SpaceX] generated $55 million in profit on $1.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2023")

It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying.

I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company.

Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).

While interesting, I don't see how it might make any difference to any federal workers' decisions?

Musk doesn't pay "because he can get away with it" isn't better or worse than "because there's a money shortage"; and in any case, the federal government being delinquent is a very different kind of catastrophe, as is it making promises it refuses to keep.

Many things are based on the assumption of the impeccable credit of the US government.

Elmo being a shitty business partner isn’t the same as the US.

We're on the same page, I think.

There's a possibility of contagion from Musk to the US government, but I very much agree they're different — and it's much worse if that contagion goes from potential to actual.

Who give a shit what their revenue is. It tells me nothing about how they pay their vendors.

2.5mm in liens is just how much they have proveably shorted construction workers in Texas. It doesn't count other vendors doing work that isn't elegible for a lien, or how many workers got shorted, but it just wasn't enough to worry about.

If you were one of the 70+ businesses that held a lien against them, you would think differently.

> It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying.

Having the cash to be paid out, and having the systems in place to pay your bills are two different things.

> I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company.

Violating the terms of your contract isn't cheap lending. It is fraud. The fact that they are getting away with it isn't a defense.

> Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).

Consistently and intentionally violating the terms of payment is, as noted above, fraud. They are getting away with, and they might continue to get away with it, but mercenary businesses getting away with crime is a bad thing.

Sigh, these rage bait style of responses are as bad as the original article. Reuters was not even able to figure out what % was due to contractors as opposed to Tesla itself.

Everything you said says nothing of how they pay their vendors. $2.5mm is not exactly breaking news for construction projects. Most large projects have some percentage of total project value in liens.

I know we all want to get upset but its too hard to say either way, the dollar amount is far too small, it maybe involve a large portion of contractors and based on the cost of the development does not seem to be a rampant issue.

It could be, also, that they are refusing to pay because they are not happy with the delivery and looking to fight it further in court. I’d say they have real cash flow issues when they stop paying their employees and electricity bills.

>> Most large projects have some percentage of total project value in liens.

I hate to be this guy but please provide a source for this. I’ve been involved in the construction industry for quite a while, almost exclusively on large and mega projects, and “most” of my jobs have not had any percentage of their total project value in liens.

One company that refused to pay for work my (then) company performed is SpaceX. Our work did not permit filing a lien.

My experience with projects and AP in general. ~$2mm across 70 liens without any split between contractors vs spacex is not that interesting. Did not look like they even accounted for a chain of liens based on the same original unit of work. The report came out in 2024 and the count and $ sum was from 2019, so over 5 years including COVID years. During COVID liens jumped quite a bit and on projects that span multiple years I don't find $2mm over 5 years that shocking.

Now SpaceX could totally be stretching their NWC as far as it goes and always paying late on purpose. Really impossible to tell in this style of shock reporting.

I would be surprised in your experience that you have never had cases of a GC not paying on his end and those folks throwing a <$100k lien on the project. Or a dispute between the GC and payer.

There are disputes about payment on lots of projects I've worked on. That wasn't your claim. You claimed that liens were filed and perfected on "most" jobs, and that is not my experience.

And I said that was my experience that liens often crop up and the scale of these were not out of the norm especially on the project size and timeline. After all the project is actively being used and some of these are not purely new construction related. Boo.

I mostly agree with you. I wasn't excusing or agreeing with the behaviour. I was only trying to ponder the amoral financial incentives.

Aside: I think most moral people struggle to even recognise amoral decision making. I also suspect that learning to be more sociopathic can be profitable. I don't much admire most doyens of business. Trying to fight amoral business people seems like a personally losing game because you eventually internalise their tricks.

Sadly, it's super common in business to delay paying up.

Edit: Never mind. They’re counting Musk’s personal donations against spacex. See reply.

——

SpaceX donated $265M to Trump last year:

https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/donald-tr...

It sounds like that’s comparable to their total profit for the year, and it would cover the liens 100 fold.

I wonder how much of that cash was taxpayer money that got laundered and used for Trump’s personal finances.

$280,475,260 of total contributions was from individuals. AKA Elon Musk.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary?id=D000029147

Thanks for correcting me.

The page I linked is confusing. (Why attribute it to SpaceX, but not X or Tesla?)

When you disclose this stuff, you have to list the donor's occupation/employer, and Elon said he was CEO of SpaceX every time he funded his PAC.

That’s still an expense even if they didn’t pay. Same as when you bill a customer, it’s considered revenue even if they didn’t pay. They probably have cash flow issues since it reached the lien stage.

Peak HN. You are literally making things up about something you know nothing about.

Is it possible Mr. Musk's companies are actually in deep trouble financially, and this political stuff is actually a means to an end?

Tesla is a fraud just short of Enron. (Enron was a complete fabrication. Tesla is a real company with fabricated valuation.) The valuation is based on hand wavey gibberish. The company has repeatedly sold consumers products that don’t exist. The concepts of duty of care, loyalty, and obedience are foreign concepts to the owner of the company.

JP Morgan’s analyst position on the company really says it all: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-deeply-skeptical-wal...

The scary thing is that the lie is so big, everyone is exposed to it — TSLA is 2% of VTI’s holdings.

I don't know offhand what TSLA's stock price is, but I think it's fair to say that the speculative value is at least very high if you believe that Tesla Optimus is at all a viable competitor to Boston Dynamics Atlas. I see much more long-term potential value in that than the car business.

Robotaxi is also a pretty interesting bet. I'm skeptical that it'll pan out, or at least that it will ever reach the same level of safety as Waymo without lidar, but on the other hand AI has obviously significantly advanced and been significantly democratized compared to when Tesla first launched Autopilot over a decade ago. More significantly, I see the decentralized rollout strategy as a potentially viable path to beat Waymo to the punch of a full-scale deployment. Waymo might still get there first based on its headstart and massive warchest, but Tesla's strategy is essentially crowdfunding it while using the market to optimize geographic distribution. The downside is that allowing the Robotaxi to be used in arbitrary/novel locations might be significantly less safe and/or more computationally expensive than Waymo's approach, so it's a more uncertain bet than Waymo.

I'm also thinking that we'll have "cool" humanoid robots before we'll have fully autonomous cars.

It just seems that self driving is staying a "hard problem" (harder than expected!)

Both would be insanely economically valuable.

I do fear humanoid robots will face intense competition from Chinese mass manufacturing, undercutting them with cost while mostly matching features.

It’s about 180x earnings, just under $380/share today.

Elon dangles all sorts of bullshit to get you thinking about nerd nonsense. “OMG, a Tesla robot will do my laundry on Mars with my robot rocket ship!”

It’s all bullshit. They’ve been dangling the imminent $25k car for a decade. The Tesla roadster that people put huge deposits on is nowhere to be found.

People are figuring it out. My previous comment would have created a 100+ comment thread in HN 5 years ago.

Both Tesla and SpaceX are insanely profitable.

Tesla was very profitable. Gross Margin is 14% now of revenue now. 1/4 of their their $8B profit is emissions credits. That's not shabby and they have lowish debt ($20B).

But it isn't what I'd call insane. Google's gross margin is 58%, profit is $349B.

I'm not sure why you're comparing the gross margin of a car company to an internet company. General Motors has a gross margin of 10%. Ford's is 7%. Historically Tesla's was ~25%, but yeah it's fallen a bit since I last looked.

> I'm not sure why you're comparing the gross margin of a car company to an internet company.

Because the benchmark set was "insane". I agree no car company gets insane profitability levels. Tesla was never insanely profitable by most metrics.

SpaceX is not insanely profitable. Starlink might become so, but it isn't yet.

Only because they're funneling every dollar they earn into Starship. But as Starship contributes absolutely nothing to current revenue, excluding those costs is the only fair apples-to-apples comparison. We don't know their exact costs because SpaceX is still a private company, but estimates are on the order of 60% profit margin across their business lines.

Tesla is abundantly wealthy mostly on the back of it's delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As was Enron...

Enron is making a comeback now: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/business/enron-resurrected-jo...

as a crypto play apparently, so

> mostly on the back of [its] delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy

continues to hold true.

Sounds like crypto…

I'm not saying you are wrong, but GME is an interesting contrast. Despite delusional investors they didn't manage to make anything of it.

They're still around. Remember they were shorted because they seemed on the verge of bankruptcy..

More zombie than thriving though.

Fair enough. They were able to exploit it with a massive share offering at a high price, which not only got them in the black but set them up with considerable holdings sufficient to survive the next downturn. So they're not going anywhere. But yeah, I don't think they have any ideas for future growth.

They should have used that money to buy GOG and go into digital distribution competing with Valve & Epic, or something like that.

But then again, so many stable companies get pushed by their investors to make big ambitious bets, then go belly-up. I kinda got respect for them just focusing on a good brick-and-mortor game buying experience.

I am complete outsider and know nothing about this so I am sorry to ask but in my view this is a shocking proposition. Can anyone corroborate this?

EDIT: Specifically the claim that "SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company"

Corroborating complaints about twitter severance [0]. The lawsuit was dismissed because of jurisdiction, not merit.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-se...

They churn through employees fast and they usually exit through burnout (no offloading) and the people wanting to work there skew towards young people who don't know what they're doing. A lot of work gets delayed, dropped, etc and some bad suppliers even take advantage of that ("the last person said they'd do X").

I know it's en-vogue to hate on Elon companies, and a lot of people would love to hear that the World's Richest Man is having financial issues, but in reality it's a bunch of starry-eyed newgrads trying to make the world better but taking on more than they can handle.

It's remarkable that, for a bunch of young people who don't know what they're doing, they've completely decimated any competitors - both public and private.

I don't know what the person you are replying to is talking about. They clearly don't know anyone who works at SpaceX. The age there does trend young, but think 24-year-old flight controller for Apollo, not intern that doesn't know anything. I have friends who work at SpaceX and gripe about how difficult it is to hire people. But not for lack of applicants--their standards are just so high. Nearly everyone working at SpaceX is cracked.

I know a few people working at SpaceX. Most are good. But a few I wonder how they ever got hired there.

As a customer of SpaceX, though, I have to say their customer service is barebones. It is almost a relief when I work with another launch provider since they provide a much better service and support. I always compare it to a low cost airline in my head, like flying Spirit instead of Emirates kind of thing.

> 24-year-old flight controller for Apollo

E.g. intern that knows nothing

From the perspective of a crusty old man anyway.

The average age of everyone in the room at Mission Control during Apollo 11 was 28. The managers in the room were outliers (e.g. Gene Kranz was 36), which drew the average up. The median age was younger.

The Manhattan Project was made possible by similarly young grad students.

You can be as crusty as you like, but the reality is that young smart people can be extraordinarily effective under the right conditions.

Flight controllers execute the mission, but they also rely on the engineers who built the things and wrote the procedures. Flight controllers often are young, even today and even in control centres outside SpaceX. The engineers designing and building the systems tend to be a bit older.

Not in the Apollo days they weren't. They were almost all straight out of engineering school.

They've outcompeted by improving their designs faster, by being willing to take risks and do stuff that might work, rather than requiring 9000 levels of process for everything. To my mind that's completely consistent with the kind of company that might lose track of some invoices and not pay until a supplier kicks up enough of a fuss.

all the other competitors are unserious and/or treating it as a money siphoning scheme. in particular, the public contractors siphoning money from the government and blue origin siphoning money from bezos.

It would be surprising if spacex wasn't just awful at paying things on time, as there's no reason they should have actual financial difficulties.

These guys are idiots, fucking morons, and can’t get anything right. Somehow they’re also outcompeting us on everything. It isn’t clear why, but it must be because we are smarter.

China very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing despite this being deliberately made difficult by ITAR, suggests there's a lot of room for the American (and ESA) competitors to be structurally inept without needing Musk's staff to be demonstrating an unusual (as opposed to industry standard) degree of genius.

They have copied the external look of the rockets (which is, for obvious reasons, not protected by ITAR), but to my knowledge no one, China or otherwise, has managed to match the internal engineering prowess nearly a decade later.

To say that China is "very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing" is quite the stretch.

Blue Origin has finally turned it around and is getting close to matching SpaceX.

I sure hope so, but also caution (admittedly as an outsider, your posts suggest greater familiarity than I have) that there's not enough evidence yet to be confident of that — finally getting to launch is really impressive, but their first orbital capable rocket is still a sample size of 1.

(Counter point is that New Glenn's one orbital launch is more impressive than all of the Starship launches combined, as SpaceX is willing to burn hardware during tests and they have many more Starship tests to go).

I know people at SpaceX, but I don't know anyone at Blue Origin. We're all very curious to know what has changed, as they very clearly have made changes. There was a large shakeup in company management there in late 2023, and the turnaround on timeline was stunning. They are certainly moving very, very fast now.

China is the world's largest economy by large (in terms of their internal costs - PPP), have 1.4 billion people meaning a proportionally larger share of extremely capable outliers, a highly capable technocratic orientated leadership with defacto authoritarian powers to get things done, and they are highly motivated to demonstrate successes in space. And a lot of SpaceX's 'secret sauce' isn't really secretive. For instance that Starship is made out of stainless steel is a big deal, but now provably correct. And rapid reuse/landing is again now obviously viable and a very good idea, which was not at all apparent for many years.

In spite of all of this they are still a very distant 2nd place behind SpaceX. If anything ITAR hurts more than helps SpaceX since it means their talent pool is strictly limited to strictly domestic talent. They seriously have something "special" going on.

Are they behind? China has a space station and they have done a sample return from the Moon. They've landed on Mars as well. If you stick to a narrow definition of rockets, there's a case to put SpaceX ahead. But overall, they are closing the gap with the US very quickly. I would not be surprised if they put humans on the Moon before Artemis or SpaceX.

Yeah I'm definitely only speaking in terms of rockets. In terms of achievements I think China is probably #1 overall, but it's close -- SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission puts them well ahead in terms of human spaceflight. That said if we just dropped the whole SLS nonsense and started dedicating NASA's $20 billion+ per year to actually doing stuff, our achievements would rapidly surpass given the edge in rocketry.

Artemis definitely isn't going to be putting anybody on the Moon. It again relies on the SLS which is just an endless money pit. But I do think it'll be interesting to see if SpaceX gets there before China. But I think the big picture is on Mars. I expect whoever gets their first will probably foretell who dominates space for the next century. Because once you can put men on Mars, the entire Solar System starts to viably become your playground.

Damn, all these fucking morons and idiots are not structurally inept and everyone else somehow is. It must be because we are very intelligent that these morons are successful.

I'm not entirely clear who you're mocking here; Boeing, trying to understand why SpaceX and China are doing well? If so, we're on the same page.

Yeah, I've always been trying to be objective as possible when it comes to the hate sent towards Tesla, SpaceX, etc from the heat Elon is getting but having lived near Hawthorne, I've met a couple of people who worked at SpaceX and it is insane. I had a really good friend who moved from the midwest with his wife to spacex and she became a favorite at spacex which meant she lived at spacex. He would see her like once a week and eventually they went to shit. I had applied there before but after seeing that I was no longer interested

The only thing surprising to me is how people don't know this.

The propaganda machine must be real good.

I think people in the industry know? I went to a SpaceX recruitment event back in 2010, and even then they were very upfront about it. People give their heart and soul to the company, and their turnover from burnout is shockingly high. The recruiter had some nicer way of phrasing it, but it was completely transparent what they meant.

Why was this guys wife so important to have around the office at SpaceX if she wasn’t an employee?

I think he is saying she is a SpaceX employee, and was doing well at her job but working a lot.

It is confusingly worded, but I think the wife is the SpaceX employee.

To be a neutral as possible. The claim is very much a hit piece that makes a good soundbite or headline. Most large construction projects have single digit liens that get placed against it and in this case we don't know what % of the liens are because of contractors not paying and which are SpaceX themself.

Hadn't heard of it either until up-thread so I looked. The two primary articles that were found on a search were from Reuters and the San Antonio Express News. Most other seem to just be referencing the Reuters article and using the same quotes. Tend to think the opinion up-thread is probably close, and SpaceX is basically not paying because they can, because people want the work, and because they can make more holding the money and delaying as long as possible, while eating relatively small fees.

Reuters, May 2024: "Quick to Build, Slow to Pay" https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui...

SAEN, Feb, 2025: "Contractors say they're owed more than $5.5 million" https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-unpaid-c...

There's also a "somewhat" unique one from MySanAntonio that goes over the general range of lawsuits that are being filed against Musk in Texas over a range of issues. It happens to include the Reuters article lawsuits and liens as one of the many listed.

MySanAntonio, Sept, 2024: "lawsuits in Texas" https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/elon-musk-t...

https://www.fastcompany.com/91124157/spacex-contractors-texa...

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui...

They're hard to come by because people think rockets magically solve all of our problems and so any problems they introduce are ignored for the "greater good".

The senior executives still are.

Case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk...

The only substantive order in the case to date appears to be one denying Elon Musk et al.'s motion to dismiss one of the claims: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.42...

That would be a separate issue, those are not the terms of a buy-out package initiated after the acquisition, but rather wanting to enforce the terms of their original agreements (because Musk terminated them).

To my knowledge, no. Former employees sued to get Twitter's old pre-acquisition severance package and the court dismissed it. [1]

1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...

This is not true. There are thousands of cases at various stages still in progress. This ruling was specific to one specific avenue being pursued. Source: the body of the article you posted.

Can you quote the part about thousands or provide a source? I see that there is an ongoing executive lawsuit and one for managers but didn't see anything about thousands of individual lawsuits.

Fair point that it wasn't quoted. Here's a summary: https://www.twitterlayofflawsuit.com/case-summaries

How about this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-loses-battle-dismis...

This one is about executives not regular employees.

> this was never authorized by congress,

Correct.

> so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best

Incorrect.

The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are paid. Note that there will probably be riots if lengthy furloughed folks don’t get back pay.

> So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.

Correct.

The speculation is that:

1. The “resign” folks will be put on admin leave in March 1 (or earlier).

2. Budget impasse in mid-March. Furlough ensues.

3. Folks on admin leave just end up getting cut, or not paid, and/or not back paid due to peculiarities of admin leave.

> It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.

I think it’s above average, but not “incredibly generous”. People get $25k VSIP and VERA offers all the time. This may not seem like a lot, but many fed employees live in low COL areas and/or earn relatively low wages.

The best parts of the package, assuming they deliver, would be things like insurance (for non-retirees) and possibly TSP contributions and matching (if those are allowed).

If they want the numbers they say that they want, I think something near this level of package is necessary.

Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans?

Non-American here with only a Mickey Mouse understanding of US mechanics of power.

So the fed defunding whatever they like by fiat gives the Republicans nothing to offer the other side to play ball because anything that they offer could easily be taken away. Its like showing up to the auction with monopoly money.

Without the dems they need almost every Republican to agree because their margin is only 5 votes. Historically this is difficult because their ranks now include several morons and extremists most notably the lady who actually believed Jews were responsible for starting wildfires with space based lasers.

If a handful of extremists don't ask for crazy nonsense they will still have every hand out for pork.

Then it goes to the Senate where it needs 60 votes including dems to pass anything. The first round of crazy if it passes anything might easily end up with something too stupid to pass the Senate without also termination of the fillibuster.

It's happened before. In 2018 the shutdowns occurred despite the Republican hold over both houses.

Republicans only hold the house by two seats so to pass something they need to have everyone on board. Any single republican member of congress that wants to hold the whole thing hostage for demands pretty much can.

At that point a Democrat could vote yes to ensure those demands are not met, if that is determined to be the best of bad choices.

> Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans?

No. American political parties are more akin to continuously-branded coalitions than parties in the way they work in parliamentary systems. There is a minority of House Republicans who will vote down any budget bill because they reject the concept of federal government.

Generally a small cadre of extremists within the ruling party holds the entire government hostage for a few days over performative nonsense for future campaign purposes.

> Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans?

I’m not an expert on this topic, so please take these comments with a grain of salt:

1. The simplest way a budget impasse could start is with internal feuding within the Republican Party. Some Republicans are very aggressive deficit hawks all the time. Some Republicans are only “deficit hawks” when a Democrat is president, but they spend freely when a Republican is president. Note that almost all of the largest budget deficits since 1990 have been under Republican administrations (Covid years under Trump and Biden were wonky and should probably be asterisked). So the pork-seeking Republicans and the deficit hawk Republicans can get into a stand off about what the budget should be.

2. Even if Congress is on the same page, Trump can choose not to sign the budget if he doesn’t get his pet issues addressed. This may seem like something that they should be able to work out beforehand, but his “priorities” change, sometimes daily, often based on who he happened to have spoken to last.

3. Some republicans want the government to break. The playbook here is to break the system in some way, point out that the system doesn’t work, and then make attempts to privatize that system or massively overhaul that system (likely with massive cuts of workers and largesse to contractors). It may seem odd that an elected official strives to make the government not work, but they are able to make that tack work for them at the polls. I think that this is a deep (and warped) issue that is hard for me to explain well.

Also, the last House was wracked with all sorts of deadlock because the Republican majority was only 5 representatives, and having 5 splinter off was incredibly easy.

The current House has an even smaller majority of 2 currently, so it's now infinitely more possible for a deadlock to happen.

Exactly this.

2 are nearly guaranteed to break because we have a couple of republicans that always vote no on budget bills because they want massive cuts to everything.

That means either the bill ends up completely destroying federal funding, which risks losing centrist republicans or republicans in tight district races. Or the bill ends up trying to win over a few democrats in similarly contested districts, which risks losing a fair bit of republicans that reject any bills that have democrat votes.

The counterpoint from what I have been reading is that the Dems will not be helping without concessions, particularly about oversite regarding Elon musk, and doge.

See, for instance, how long it took them to elect a speaker.

> massive cuts of workers

That is what Trump is doing via DOGE so the burn-it-down camp seems pretty well served, more than anytime since the post-war demobilization anyway. The impasse, if it occurs, is more likely to be with those in Congress that don’t want to reduce the size of government.

I think the burn-it-down camp is better described as true believers in free-marketism, and they genuinely expect business to be booming and things to work great when they've cut back on government functionality.

DOGE acts different. It seems to me DOGE is about crashing the US economy and/or world economy to attempt wild and radical Silicon Valley theories about alternate societies. As such, its actions are inclined to ruin the fortunes and the business of the free marketeer camp, because those folks are functioning in the real world and have businesses, employees, and pay those employees in dollars.

So I don't think the 'burn-it-down' camp should favor DOGE. It is in no way their ally and is there to ruin them, in order to rebuild a society upon somebody else and leave 'em ruined. It's pretty plain to see DOGE's opinion of those people based on its attitude to H1B visas, for instance.

> It seems to me DOGE is about crashing the US economy and/or world economy to attempt wild and radical Silicon Valley theories about alternate societies

I see absolutely no evidence that the DOGE crowd wants to crash the economy and while they do have a utopian ideology so does the left.

Additionally, the DOGE crowd would say they’re trying to dismantle an unaccountable deep state conspiracy that threatens the American economy through an accelerating accumulation of government debt and regulations and has been trying to transform society globally for decades through political, social, economic, and military intervention all to serve the progressive elites.

I think both of your views are lacking in charity and perspective, although the DOGE view in so far as I’ve accurately described it has vastly more evidence backing it up.

Man Elon himself said his plan is to crash the economy. When people tell you who they are, listen!

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

That is far different (and much less severe) than the original claim of accelerationism that was being made earlier.

> to crash the economy

The quote is “markets will tumble” by which he clarifies that it will be a temporary market overreaction not “crash the economy” like it’s 1929. Those are qualitatively different things.

He intends to make the market crash (or at least is taking actions that will almost certainly crash it), but he thinks it will recover afterwards. The first part is pretty certain with what they're doing. The second part is almost impossible to predict, because no one can really say what the break points are (i.e. how much it can crash and still quickly recover afterwards). See the mortgage crisis of 2008 for what an unexpected runaway effect looks like.

The US is $36 trillion in debt with that debt growing at an accelerating rate. This is happening at the time that our technological (let alone economic) edge over most of the rest of the world is fading to completely gone, and our own growth rate is starting to decline. To many, this does not seem to have the makings of a sustainable state of affairs.

And not only that but a lot of the spending we engage is a mixture of minimally beneficial and/or outright corrupt. For instance at one point the Air Force was paying $10,000 for toilet seats. It's only after that received extensive publicity that they swapped over to simply 3D printing the seats, probably for a few bucks per seat. [1] There's about a 99.999% chance that the supplier for those $10,000 toilet seats had a rather low degree of personal separation from the person signing off on paying $10,000 for them. And now imagine how much you could save if you started wiping this nonsense out of the entire government.

Government spending, however, is accounted as part of GDP and other economic metrics. Each one of those toilet seats sent the GDP up, improved the economics of the company delivering them, and even created some jobs. So getting rid of this nonsense will obviously 'hurt' the economy in the short-run, but in turn you get a sustainable system, dramatically reduce spending, and create a more competitive economy. When it's even possible to sell toilet seats for $10,000 (easily replaceable by 3D printing), who cares about the private market? To say nothing of the fact that merit/competitiveness is obviously completely nonexistent or farcical for many government contracts.

[1] - https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/07/11/air-force-no...

needs 60 votes to pass senate, not just a majority

Filibuster is just a procedural rule that can itself be removed by simple majority, and it has already been watered down on a case by case basis when that was politically expedient, so there's no hard line there. It's actually kind of amazing that we still have it.

Not if they pass it via reconciliation.

> The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot).

Since the budget is only funded through March, the budget can be modified in March in order to extend the funding for it (all those "government shutdown avoidance negotiations"). At which point it won't matter whether it was budgeted or not.

If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave", does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for Congress? And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway? They're mostly on board for this bullshit aren't they?

Nothing looks bad to them, so it doesn't matter. Looking bad isn't a deterrent any more.

I don't think that's ever really been a problem for Trump. Everyone I talk to who supports him expects him to be a hail-mary grenade thrown into DC—a big middle finger to the powers that be. They feel completely disenfranchised and want a shake-up.

Amazingly, so far, it hasn't hurt his approval numbers.

> Amazingly, so far, it hasn't hurt his approval numbers.

He started with (I think) the lowest approval numbers in modern records so to an extent it was probably priced in from the outset.

If you believe the unreliable polls. He actually started higher than he did in his first term. His job approval is near the highest it has ever been. It is higher than 7/8 of Bidens term. See

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump...

The numbers are irrelevant. It is a second term presidency. What matters are the numbers for those facing reelection in less than a couple years. Even the burn down crowed don't want to remain on a wagon heading for a cliff in four years.

Given the levels of turmoil and also the levels of power grabbing, I think the president's approval ratings are very relevant.

For one, if they dip as low as they might given the expected economic hardship and the other cultural issues, you might start seeing rioting.

For another, I don't think it's a given this is Trump's final term. There already is a congressman trying to get in legislation to change the constitution to allow a third term. Even if that fails, the SCOTUS has already taken some egregious decisions in relation to Trump (full presidential immunity even for political assassinations) - what they might think they can get away with in the next four years is anyone's guess.

FWIW the constitutional amendment to enable a third term for Trump is guaranteed to fail. No matter how it is drafted, even if they do a convention, the ratification still requires 3/4 of state legislatures to vote in favor. And Republicans don't have 38 states. They won't have them even if every single state with split legislature goes full red.

I won't speculate on whether they could pass it. Democrats have been too sure of themselves for the last 7 or 8 months, and where has that gotten them? But whether it passes or not, he won't survive long enough. He's an old geezer, fat, and in poor health. Strong change he doesn't even make it to the halfway mark in this one.

Nothing ever looks bad for Trump. His followers will always make excuses for him. The latest is that Trump campaigned on “America First” and isolationism and now MAGAs are cheering his ideas of using American troops to take over the Gaza Strip and making it a tourist destination.

I guarantee Trump and his sycophants will just turn around and say they were lazy bums who wanted to get paid to do nothing, and the fact that this option was presented in the form of an early retirement offer will make exactly no difference.

You've gotta understand the dynamics of social media information warfare. Loyalty trumps any other considerations like factuality or consistency, people will denounce tomorrow what they championed today if need be. I've seen some pro posters who post contradictory responses to Trump or Musk statements and then just delete whichever one gets less positive engagement.

> If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave", does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for Congress?

It would be Trump/Elon.

Someone told me the details of how they could not pay people. It’s administrivia. It will go unnoticed by most just like how the twitter folks not getting paid went unnoticed by most.

> And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway?

They give zero fucks about fucking over feds or former Feds, as they are (allegedly) all lazy and useless.

The end result will be less money spent (trivial, but still) and a lower head count moving forward.

The Republican rhetoric on this largely doesn’t jibe with reality.

Yes, there are underemployed people in the federal government (as exist in any large org). Identifying that slack and cutting it is not something that can be done with laser shots from space. They can only be done from the ground, imho. The current way they are doing things is going to end with a lot of unpleasant unintended consequences.

Unfortunately, a big part of the Republican playbook in the last decades has been to intentionally cripple government institutions so that they can then claim that the institutions are not working well and thus should be entirely dismantled. This is done either to remove institutions that are regulating business (currently happening with the CFPB) or to replace institutions which are helping people so that private companies can step in (one of the main reasons for attacking the ACA aka Obamacare).

The idea in Project 2025 is mostly to take this to a whole new level and apply it to the majority of the federal government.

It's not widely accepted by people on the right that "Project 2025" is the official playbook for the Republican party though?

I think the adminstration's plan to execute on this is basically garden leave. They tell the "retiring" employees to stop working, but keep them on the payroll so they keep getting paid.

This administration has been playing a lot of games with "budgeted" vs. "delayed" vs. "actively being worked on" (or not). So this isn't really that different than the abrupt cancellations or delays or re-org'ing of funded and legislatively mandated work.

The main difference is the uncertainty. IMO anyone would be incredibly foolish to accept a deal from a random email with such limited info on the exact terms of what happens in edge cases like you describe: shutdown, budget shenanigans, actual official RIF, etc.

That sounds illegal

Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four years is going to be "That sounds illegal" but it's only illegal if the law gets enforced. I encourage anyone responding with "That sounds illegal" or "They can't do that" to also include in their response, "...and it will be enforced by [xxxx]." and try to come up with a realistic xxxx.

EDIT: I'm not making any judgment about whether this particular thing is legal or not--just pointing out that it doesn't matter if it's legal if nobody in power intends to enforce the law.

If you work for a local government, say, and your boss says ‘hey, here’s my plan: you stop coming to work, and I’ll make sure you get paid anyway for a few months’, if you accept those terms and go along with that plan, and then later on it turns out your boss was not allowed to do that, and you got paid a bunch of government money illegally… Normally that might come back to bite you, potentially years later. That’s the exact kind of shape and form of various public corruption scandals.

I would be very nervous about personally benefitting from what might amount to a scheme to embezzle government funds.

Just because nobody in government today is interested in looking into whether or not this is legal doesn’t mean it will never come under scrutiny.

I like the analogy, additionally, it seems like just 'stopping coming to work' is something that you could be fired for cause for. So if it comes up later that hey, this person has not been working due to a agreement that the government had no right to agree to.

Well we'll be nice and just fire them, won't even ask for salary to be returned.

They have a lawful direction to stop working and keep getting paid coming from their management.

If they were terminated for following a lawful direction they would have pretty easy recourse.

It's not a "lawful direction" if the order is illegal.

You would have to go pretty far to prove to a standard I would accept that "Go work from home, and do nothing, we will keep paying you" is an illegal order.

Firstly: Its telling these people to work from their principle place of work, their home. Something thats been commonplace since covid.

Secondly, "Do Nothing" seems like a very legal thing for these people to be doing.

I suspect that theres not a court in the land that would convict a government employee for doing nothing.

Very unclear to me that ‘do nothing and get paid for it with congressionally appropriated funds earmarked for doing something’ is legal.

In the context of general employment, "do nothing", is legal. "Wait" is legal.

Orchestrating a grand plan to waste government money by requesting multiple staff to stop working might be a grey area that the courts will decide on. But no employee would be expected to take it to court to test its validity instead of following a lawful direction.

Musk is not "requesting multiple staff to stop working" he's asking people to voluntarily resign and promising if they do they get paid until September 30 as if they had not resigned.

It's not clear to me that this is even a "direction" never-mind a "lawful direction".

The way the staff member opts into this arrangement is to write "I resign" in an email. There is no "direction" telling them to do this. It is entirely voluntary behavior on the part of the federal employee.

The issue being discussed I believe was whether they have any legal protections if they don't get paid.

I don't think anyone was claiming they'd go to jail for resigning or anything like that.

Since the promise to pay staff who resigned doesn't necessarily appear to be legal it doesn't appear they necessarily have recourse if not paid given their resignation was voluntary.

>it's only illegal if the law gets enforced.

It is completely valid to say something is illegal and unenforced.

Consider that non-enforcement doesn't suddenly make something legal. Enforcement can start at any time. (Will it? Who knows!)

But for purposes of debating what someone should do illegal and unenforced generates the same outcomes as legal and if we're only concerned about outcomes it's rational to treat them as equivalent.

>what someone should do illegal and unenforced generates the same outcomes as legal

Illegal + unenforced can generate the same outcome as legal. Or someone can get arrested later when the enforcement begins.

There's a big difference.

> There's a big difference.

There's no difference in the short term. Something being illegal, doesn't mean it will stop anytime soon in this political situation. Remaking the same obvious point is tedious and smacks of word games to try a to make a backdoor political statement. Yes, some act is odious and against a law. Not relevant to whether or not it will have the desired consequence, regardless of who is ever held accountable.

>try a to make a backdoor political statement.

Yikes. Not trying to make any statement other than legality and enforcement are two distinct concepts. I think it's important to consider all 4 combinations.

What political statement do you think I'm trying to make? I can't even identify what side of the aisle the statement you think I'm trying to make would fall on.

Sometimes a comment is just a comment, not a secretly coded political message.

There is a simple dictionary difference between "legal" and "illegal." Using the actual meaning of a word is kinda the opposite of playing word games.

From the first instance:

> That sounds illegal

> There is a simple dictionary difference between "legal" and "illegal.

This is kind of response is a repeat of exactly what I have described.

Again, "illegal" was used in context to mean something else. ie The damage will be remedied...which it cannot fully be, nor is it likely to be. Sampling conversations going forward from that, is where the thread has been allowed to be unraveled.

Elevating the original statement to be more than what it meant in context, is irrelevant. Posters are continually choosing new (eg dictionary!) interpretations of the sentiment at every turn.

Yes, I see, the dictionary definition is brand new. It just dropped right out of the sky. Very good point.

That's amusing but irrelevant. Sometimes we may not only be concerned about what you call "outcomes." To cover those occasions, we use a variety of different words.

For the government, it largely does because the individuals are immune from lawsuits and the government fining itself is a pointless ouroboros. Many things can't be retroactively unwound reasonably.

Once the impact has been made, it's pretty sticky. Once these workers are gone and have been replaced, we're unlikely to unwind it. Once people are deported we're unlikely to un-deport them (I'm not even sure what that would mean).

Completely correct for individuals, though. Unwinding is simple there, you can just send them to jail at a later date.

The larger problem is that they are at the border of or past crimes that either will get prosecuted eventually or we are at the end of democratic controls (starting at term limits) so that these people never get prosecuted.

> It is completely valid to say something is illegal and unenforced.

It seems somewhat vacuous to say it when it applies to every second administrative act.

Enabling act? Executive order? Administrative regulation? The Administrative Procedure Act?

What is an administrative act in this context?

"action by the new US administration"?

Looking at the Madoff saga and how some people got clawbacked decades after the fact, the wise position is to not take the offer. Today Trump is in power. Tomorrow, that might not be the case.

How can something be illegal before any judge ruled on it?

> How can something be illegal before any judge ruled on it?

If someone steals from you and there's been no conviction, was a crime committed or not? You're still out whatever was taken, but by your logic no theft has occurred until after someone has been convicted of committing the crime.

Exactly, until the judiciary system decides on the illegality of the act, the rest of society is oblivious to the nature of what happened. I'm sure that if something like that happened to you personally you'd know many of the facts at play, but if you cannot prove thorough the courts that something illegal occurred, it didn't

What role do you think the legislative branch of government plays? The judicial branch can rule on the constitutionality of the laws that have been passed and resolve other issues, but it isn't a requirement for the law to come into effect.

Illegal acts should be called out, even if our government is failing to enforce the law. Otherwise it will become easy for the acts to get ignored entirely.

It would be nice if anyone would state a law being violated. A lot of people seem to be making a lot of assumptions too about what DOGE/Elon are doing vs what the president or directors of the agencies (for instance) are doing

Here's some reading after a quick googling.

https://time.com/7212753/trump-elon-musk-federal-laws-legal-...

Definitely in uncharted territory, but these are some possible laws that have been violated:

Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Privacy Act of 1974, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), Internal Revenue Code’s Section 6103.

I do agree that citing specific laws is best. However, if the building is on fire, I want the alarm bells on immediately even if it's low specificity.

What sort of assumptions have you been seeing?

> if the building is on fire

If you're already allowing the question to be begged, there's really no need for specificity in the argument.

Because if there was no law being broken, that means that the building was not on fire. People tell me that shouting "fire!" is supposed to be bad when there is no fire. I don't think they would accept it as being "low-specificity."

There's a bunch of smoke so let's call the fire dept first and let them assess.

Unless you’re a member of congress or a civil servant in the executive branch, paying any attention to this is wasted energy.

We already saw this play out in his last term. Directing how laws are enforced is a function of the executive branch. Nothing will be done.

Your energy is better spent identifying and articulating the values you hold that these actions are an affront to and shouting that out.

At minimum, drawing people's attention to the ongoing issues can result in a different batch of congressional representatives in the future.

Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.

We are kind of locked into what we have. A single digit percentage of House races are ever contested. The vast majority of House districts are won by the party that already holds them[1].

1: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/30/decade-af...

If 4% or 18 seats were switched four years ago why wouldn't that matter because currently the majority is thin and only a few seats. That could flip in two years. My guess after the gaza comments is more likely than not to switch.

I'd love to believe that, even if only it meant our collective memory can recall events from 2 years ago.

>At minimum, drawing people's attention to the ongoing issues can result in a different batch of congressional representatives in the future.

>Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.

The odds are slim to none since the public didn’t already act, 4 years after the previous act of treason by Trump, on top of the fact that he campaigned on pardoning his treasonous co-conspirators. In fact, he was rewarded with control of all 3 branches of government.

I would say an extraordinary amount of effort from foreign adversaries had to be undertaken to get that outcome.

Careful not to assume the public is composed of rational actors all of whom have good information, when they're demonstrably not and haven't. Drawing people's attention to the ongoing issues can result in a huge amount of buyer's remorse among people who tried hard not to pay attention to the election in hopes things could be more 'normal' if they voted for what they thought would be the political party they knew.

The Democrats were leading by 8 or more until the worst debate performance in history followed by a weak replacement. People never really cared about the capital riot. They cared about getting costs down... costs are going up with tariffing the world and businesses will suffer when they are shut out of foreign markets.

Things have already changed since the last election.

Many people cared about the attempted coup. Sadly not enough

This. Remember when he literally did a commercial for Goya products from the resolute desk? His justification was that they were being "cancelled" and that the law surrounding the white house endorsing products for political support was his to enforce or not and he was just not gonna enforce it.

Sure. Remember this when people say that the dems constantly complain about the repubs, and that people are tired of hearing people say things are illegal.

My guess is that at this point, talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words.

So saying the same thing, just a different language.

And no: I have zero clue what the actions would look like. Maybe suing the govt?

Also, sounding illegal and being illegal are two different things. I really hope these discussions lead to more posts to neutral reference material, rather than just asserting things are illegal.

For example:

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3...

I've worked for the federal government before. Garden leave is 100% go-straight-to-prison illegal. It is defrauding the government.

There's a lot of stuff that is bog standard in industry, but cannot be done in government service.

Indeed... welcome to the newest "failed state". Although, that term reminds me of Sarah Chayes' book on corruption, reviewed at length in [1].

> But, as Chayes studied the graft of the Karzai government, she concluded that it was anything but benign. Many in the political élite were not merely stealing reconstruction money but expropriating farmland from other Afghans. Warlords could hoodwink U.S. special forces into dispatching their adversaries by feeding the Americans intelligence tips about supposed Taliban ties. Many of those who made money from the largesse of the international community enjoyed a sideline in the drug trade. Afghanistan is often described as a “failed state,” but, in light of the outright thievery on display, Chayes began to reassess the problem. This wasn’t a situation in which the Afghan government was earnestly trying, but failing, to serve its people. The government was actually succeeding, albeit at “another objective altogether” — the enrichment of its own members. Washington supported Hamid Karzai and his ministers and adjutants in the hope that they could establish a stable government, help pursue Al Qaeda, and keep the Taliban at bay. But the Karzai government wasn’t a government at all, Chayes concluded. It was “a vertically integrated criminal organization.”

[1] https://archive.is/E6zXj

Things can be illegal even if there's no enforcement mechanism, and while it's a really frustrating situation, people are right to be vocal and proactive about saying it.

Yes, and it would be valuable to help understand what enforcement agencies people think can/should do enforcement, and also to help educate those people when they're wrong.

I expect a vast sea of lawsuits. There are multiple ways that things can be enforced or not. But for some things, sure, if say, both enforcement duty and presidential pardons are used or not used to fit, then for these cases, illegal doesn't matter anymore. "It's not illegal if the president does it", was it?

In the case of taking early retirement, or accepting a pile of money for doing X / nothing, then you better be somewhat certain that it will last long enough.

Let's say the lawsuits are won. Here are the two inevitable outcomes for the ones that matter:

Appealed to Supreme Court which is overrepresented by Trump cultists.

Trump's DOJ refuses to enact whatever verdict the court determines.

It matters a lot in that it makes the difference between whether you can get a court injunction or not, and in that if there are sufficiently high levels of demonstrable illegality, a government would lose political legitimacy and citizens/military might simply cease obeying it.

I am not taking a position on this particular policy being legal or not, it's too technical for me to know about and it's not something I want to research.

> I encourage anyone responding with "That sounds illegal" or "They can't do that" to also include in their response, "...and it will be enforced by [xxxx]." and try to come up with a realistic xxxx.

I encourage before doing that to find out if the thing is actually illegal, and to cite the law that it violates. This will be better than relying on sounds or smells.

The OPs procedure expect normal people to break the law.

Any observation you have for the oligopolists being able to commit mass murder or whatever won't apply to that people.

True. The rule of law died on Jan 20. Musk is likely doing a lot of things that are strictly illegal, but it seems quite likely that Trump has assured him he has his back with pardons if need be. Also, Trump controls federal law enforcement agencies that have likely been told to look the other way. The only legal vulnerability would be at the state level and they're not doing things there.

> The rule of law died Jan 20

This kind of hyperbole isn’t helpful when the outgoing President hands out pardons like they were coupons, nor when the President can’t remember signing EOs and is known to have limited mental faculties for the past few years, all while being shielded by his inner circle. I mean the Constitution is pretty specific about a President not fit to do their job.

If you had said “the rule of law stayed dead on Jan 20th” I might disagree but it’s at least a defensible opinion.

The reason it's defensible is that now checks and balances are gone because there aren't even token checks/balances from partisanship--the remaining functions of government are controlled by a single party, purging anyone who isn't loyal and willing to do whatever they deem justified.

They're paving a road to hell.

> the remaining functions of government are controlled by a single party

You realize that the check and balances never required that different parties head each branch of government?

I'm not sure you have even a basic understanding of how the US government is organized by the US constitution.

>You realize that the check and balances never required that different parties head each branch of government?

They do in effect, because the existence of political parties means there is no reason for members of the same party to check and balance each other across different branches, as opposed to collaborating across branches to consolidate their power.

Which is exactly what's happening.

No, the checks and balances are defined as simply different people, not different parties.

The Democratic and Republican parties are not monolithic. They don't always agree and there are plenty of differences across individuals.

Hence, the Founding Fathers never required that a different party sit in the executive and legislative functions.

It will be enforced by a future administration, is the answer.

If a federal civil servant receives payroll, but does no work, for months on end, they have not taken a buyout, they have defrauded the federal government. What is the statute of limitations for that crime? Longer than 4 years. And Trump is term-limited.

That said, I agree with others that the more likely outcome in this specific case is that everyone who takes the “buyout” simply has their payments cut off rather quickly.

> Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four years is going to be "That sounds illegal"

And the last four years, for which Biden pardoned his son, certainly nothing illegal in his doings I'm sure.

oh brother, totally agree.

but also, legality is a thing of the past in the new way of things it feels.

That's called giving up and it's exactly what they want you to do. Do not concede without a fight. Call your elected representatives and tell them you expect them to hold these people accountable and to be loud about it.

They're doing something you don't like so the assumption is that it's illegal, but people aren't even sure what law it's supposed to be. And they're probably right that it's illegal, because there are so many laws that any given thing is a violation of any number of them. But that's the problem. If you actually enforced all of the laws on the books, everyone would be in jail.

The only reason they aren't is not that most people are violating precisely zero of the many thousands of laws they've never even heard of, it's strictly a lack of enforcement.

Which is where that attitude comes from: If the only reason anybody isn't in jail is that they haven't become a target and so nobody has bothered to look up which laws they're breaking, whether you broke a law or not is no longer relevant because the answer is always yes, and the thing that determines whether you go to jail is who your friends (or enemies) are.

If you want to get back to the rule of law, you need to get back to having only laws that ordinary people can understand, remember and follow.

which representative? the one that "represents" a cracked district and doesn't see me as a constituent? or the senator who also doesn't see me as a constituent because of my address?

Talk about the people you are gathering together in the district.

Garden leaves are done all the times in the private sector.

…which the public sector is not. It’s highly regulated.

Nothing is currently highly regulated.

Yes it is. That regulation is just not currently being enforced. Which is an important difference because at some point down the line retroactive enforcement might occur.

The way things are escalating between the two parties, perhaps even somewhat likely to occur. But who knows, perhaps presidential pardon can be generalized - before it becomes necessary to reign it back.

Would that cause employees to break laws if they accepted employment elsewhere during that time?

No, it is specifically stated that there are no repercussions for finding other work.

the problem is that email has no legal basis. They make promises they are not entitled to make. This is really, really bad, it's like someone that doesn't work for your company at all and is just friends with your CEO sent you a buyout proposal from their personal email.

Would you take it?

yeah this is not a buyout, this is someone asking people to resign and that MAYBE their employer will look the other way while they don't work until the effective resignation date but no guarantees about it.

That's a setup for firing people on the spot for cause if I've ever seen one.

It is incredibly foolish to entertain this offer. OPM v Richmond[1] held that the government has effectively zero liability for lying about financial benefits that haven't been specifically authorized by Congress.

[1]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/496/414/

Fortunately, the current US president has a long and storied history of going out of his way to pay people mutually agreed-upon sums from prior contracts.

Sadly yep.

Kind of odd seeing people casually discuss the mechanics/details of what's been going on this last week, as if they whole thing isn't just flagrantly illegal.

Reminds me of this: https://www.upworthy.com/hypernormalization-explained.

Ironically, enough, interacting with that website without an adblocker is itself a great example of hypernormalization.

Please elaborate, what law does administrative leave violate?

If they don’t fulfill their end of the agreement (paying until the date in question) then surely any agreement to quit in return for X months pay would be broken? So you’d still be employed unless the pay out is made?

This is where I go ”I know nothing about US law but if I wouldn’t win this argument in any court even without representation then it must be fundamentally broken”

The argument would be ”those who entered the agreement didn’t have the authority to do so” but obviously that can’t hold water.

The question is whether if the deal gets voided by the court, the employee has to still quit or whether they can then return. Especially since the employee wouldn't be formally terminated until the end of the twelve months.

Have the exact payment details been released? Because I understood it as "you will get paid same as always through September, you just don't have to show up to work". Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that doesn't sound like a "buyout" in the traditional sense.

It is not a buyout. OPM has said that agencies can opt to put people who choose this on administrative leave (but they don't have to, they can keep the people working). So the effect is what the name is "deferred resignation", OPM pinky swears that you won't be cut before 30 September in a RIF or other actions if you take this offer and you'll get your biweekly pay as normal.

What's your source for the assertion that it's not a buyout and it's up to the individual agency if the employee is required to continue working? You might be right that it's not a buyout, but the official Office of Personnel Management FAQ seems to clearly describe it as one:

Q: Am I expected to work at my government job during the deferred resignation period? A: No.

Q: Am I allowed to get a second job during the deferred resignation period? A: Absolutely! We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.

Q: Will I really get my full pay and benefits during the entire period through September 30, even if I get a second job? A: Yes. You will also continue to accrue annual leave and sick leave during the deferred resignation period until you separate. You will be paid a lump sum for accrued but unused annual leave upon separation.

Q: Can I take an extended vacation while on administrative leave? A: You are most welcome to stay at home and relax or to travel to your dream destination. Whatever you would like.

https://www.opm.gov/fork/faq

Is there an explanation for this apparent discrepancy?

> I am certain of my decision to resign and my choice to resign is fully voluntary. I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.

From https://www.opm.gov/fork/

That is what resigners agree to. There is no guarantee of leave and it is up to their agency, not OPM. The FAQ has previously contained information contradicting the OPM Fork letter so it's not surprising the two pages disagree still.

It's not a buyout because it is not a lump sum severance. The payout for annual leave is given to all departing feds (resigning or retiring or RIF'd), it is not unique to this offer.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-ad...

OPM also says that admin leave authority rests with the agency, not them.

https://www.opm.gov/media/xmxfp34k/opm-memo-legality-of-defe...

Best source for information on this since the FAQ disagrees with the memo and the contents of the letter.

> Yes. The decision to grant administrative leave, and for how long, lies largely within the agency’s discretion.

That's the official OPM guidance on this, where they're saying that you may have to work and that it is up to the agency and not OPM.

Thanks, this does seem to be a much clearer statement. I appreciate the followup!

Doesn't the budget to pay these people already exist? They are current employees, after all. Their terminations will still shrink the budget, just not as soon as a termination without a severance package.

Maybe there are some legal differences in offering what would otherwise be wages as a lump-sum payment, but the budget for those wages already exists (else they could not be employed).

Correct.

The only thing would require more budget is hiring backfills (while paying out the leave).

Supposedly, they can get the same work done with fewer people.

Didn’t the budget already include pay for these people through the end of the fiscal year though? Will they need more money if the people stop working now vs stopping in September?

The government is still an employer and subject to the same liability if not more so. I'd think workers would have a strong case to sue for damages if that happened. I'd take that bet. I can't imagine a situation where a judge wouldn't side with the employee on this.

Not American here. Isn't Congress controlled by Republicans? If I understand correctly, it would take 5+ Republicans voting against the party line for a Republican bill to fail to pass? Is this common?

I think the number is only 2 or 3 because once some people are confirmed for the cabinet, they have to leave the House of Representatives.

Really? There must be some replacement who steps in though, no? Otherwise districts would have no representation, which seems unlikely.

For the House of Representatives, the state will hold a special election to fill vacancies:

> When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

- Article I, Section 2

For the Senate, the governor of the state may (per their legislative body's approval) make a temporary appointment and will also hold a special election:

> When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

- Amendment XVII

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27#toc-...

The offer can be rescinded, those who take it could just be terminated and per the contract they have absolutely no recourse.

It’s arguably an unconscionable contract, it’s so wickedly one-sided.

If the gov will not be funded and you don't believe the gov will honor it's severance agreement why would you believe the employment contract will be honored after March 14?

There’s many examples of government shutdowns where workers received back pay even when they didn’t work those hours.

So future administrations are likely to retroactively approve payments if it becomes a political issue. Honestly taking the buyout without an act of congress backing it is likely the more risky here unless you where already planning to leave which is likely why most people took it.

By law they have to be paid for the furloughed time in the case of a shutdown, since 2019. Previously, they were typically paid for that time whether they had to work through the shutdown or not but it was not guaranteed.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12251

Who's going to enforce that law?

That's a good question, perhaps it should be posed to the members of the so-called party of law and order.

The employees, suing in Federal court, since they have a clear and obvious loss to point to, they will have standing. Judges can either obey the law or not. If they don't obey the law, then we are much further along on the authoritarian spectrum then everyone thinks, but so far Musk has lost a lot of court cases and has several emergency injunctions against him doing anything.

Judges can write as many judgments as they want, but who's going to enforce those judgments? Only an executive branch that is interested in the rule of law is going to care about judgments.

Being the head of the executive branch only provides so much actual power here.

You need to replace lower level employees as Trump is trying, and at 1% adoption mostly failing to do.

That was a different situation because those people continue to be employees. The gov gave them back pay during shutdown because it wants them to continue to work after the shutdown (so services keep being rendered).

In this case, Trump/Musk don't want these workers back, so there's no political incentive or pressure to pay them. They can just not do so if it's "not funded by Congress" (usually there's fine print about this, at least there is in gov contracts, which are similar).

I recall there being some significant gaps, so these people had already returned to work.

But it’s not just about current workers, new administrations have handed out money to people for past issues years or sometimes decades after the fact. Just as an example the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was about compensation for people exposed during the Cold War.

$50,000 to individuals residing or working "downwind" of the Nevada Test Site $75,000 for workers participating in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests $100,000 for uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_Exposure_Compensatio...

I can’t blame anyone for taking the risk. That’s life changing money for normal people. And if you’re in a good spot to get a new job fast, I could see taking a chance on it.

Well, their positions are funded (depending on how FY25 funds were allocated to the agency). The order just means they can potentially not come to work until September.

Severance packages don't require Congressional approval.

Funding can only come from congress. At this scale it will require new funding.

The whole idea is to the same or more done with fewer people.

According to that hypothesis, it won't require more funding.

I think the reason it works is because it’s not technically a buyout. It’s 8 months of reduced duties.

And proposed by two people, Musk and Trump, who are, shall we say, not great at holding up their end of financial bargains.

Well it is a good thing Trump and co are so well known for paying what they owe. These people are dumb if they take the offer. Job market has been cooked for 3 years already, these people will not fair well.

Correct. Donald Trump has had a reputation for stiffing people for close to 50 years now.

These workers will resign, and won't get paid what they were told they'd get paid.

This is a man who is so cheap, so petty, he held up billions of dollars worth of economic relief during COVID just so he could have his signature on a bunch of stimulus checks.

Regardless of what is budgeted, if you have a contract then that can be enforced in federal court.

Trump has never not been, and will never not be, the apocryphal version of PT Barnum.

It's an even better deal if it gets torn up after a month. You get a one month paid vacation and then go back to work.

> You get a one month paid vacation

I wrote it elsewhere, but no. It may or may not be a paid vacation. Agencies get to decide themselves, not OPM, whether the employees are put on leave or continue to work. There is zero guarantee that anyone will get administrative leave under the offering.

You’ve already resigned…

But that resignation was part of a larger deal. If the deal is thrown out, shouldn't the resignation be thrown out too?

And what happens when you try to come back to work? Will Musk pay you or allow you into the office? He literally has control of the federal budget for payments now.

We are getting into banana republic territory now with no rule of law.

I definitely wouldn't put it past Elon Musk to offer a buyout, collect a list of names who "accept" and then fire them all as disloyal, without any buyout. It would be on-character.

Specifically we're getting into territory where political actors choose to behave like there is no rule of law, in hopes they will be believed.

Not sure about that one. Nor do I think the election would have gone the way it did if people generally figured their choice was to have Elon Musk's word be law, and everything else including the Constitution to be thrown away as old hat.

I really don't think people priced that into their decision, so buyer's remorse becomes a real factor. People may demand that rule of law not be thrown away.

Political actors are already acting like there is no rule of law. Denying birth right citizenship, promising benefits to people that wasn’t funded, declaring the TikTok ban that was passed by overwhelming bipartisan majority and upheld by a conservative Supreme Court wasn’t relevant, giving Musk so much power, etc.

We are way past the point of rule of law.

While the population as a whole may not be in favor of it, because of how the way the electoral college works, even knowing what they know now, he would win. Not to mention how the Senate is setup - each state has two senators regardless of size - and gerrymandering.

Hell at this point, I hope they reinstate the full state tax deduction, let states tax more, defund the federal government and let the red states rot in poverty and the Blue wealthier states work together

The list of expenditures never authorized by Congress is staggering. You're spot-on about the authorization risk but it's just the latest in a perpetual issue. Congress has normalized funding "zombie programs" through autopilot appropriations rather than proper reauthorizations. Notable zombie programs include VA health, women's health spending, NIH research...

House Rule XXI (blocking unauthorized spending) gets waived a majority of the time. 50% of expired programs haven't been reviewed in 10+ years. 2023 alone saw $236B in improper payments.

So IMO while the buyout could get axed the pattern suggests they'll likely kick the can with another CR. Perhaps this administration will try to force a different tack, I suppose we'll see.

As someone who worked on a NIH funded project whose funding wasn’t renewed last fall after 10 years. Those 10 years included a bunch of renewals. NIH projects aren’t zombie and need constant attention. Plus all research done has to be put in the public domain.

》 So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.

I do not see your arguments

US has worker protections, even if US government goes bancrupt, it has to pay its obligations. And if government refuses to pay, no worker, even if employed, is getting anything!

And you think that an offer accepted by sending an email with "Resign" in the subject line is subject to these protections? You think DOGE is even authorized to make said offers? Why, because Elon and Trump said so?

Also your last line is just bizarre. The US government can very much selectively pay some parties but not others during a shutdown. That's kind of the definition of a shutdown....

Plus this administration is already brazenly breaking laws. You think they won't violate worker protection laws? Sure, maybe the courts sort it out in a year or two, small comfort to the people who were relying on that income to pay their rent in the meantime.

The requirements for making a contract are minimal. If your friend says "I bet you a hundred dollars that you can't run over there and back in less than a minute" and you say nothing in response but start running, you've entered into a binding contract. Your other points still stand, but an email that makes an offer and makes it clear that you accept by responding "Resign" and a response to that email that says "Resign" is definitely sufficient to be subject to contract law.

Binding on illegal contracts is tricky. If I offer X for murder, and you do the murder and I don't pay you; you can't seek recompense in the courts.

If the government's offer is illegal, those who accepted it and performed their part of the contract may not be able to force the government to perform its part.

Your example of a binding contract isn’t a binding contract since there’s no consideration to the person who made the bet.

I think I agree, on reflection, that it is not a binding contract. But (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think it's a matter of consideration- in a wager, each party stands to gain the agreed upon amount depending on the outcome, which should qualify for that criteria AFAICT. I think the informality of a between-friends bet and gambling laws are what do the example in.

Yeah that clarification helps and I agree there - there's a bunch of exceptions of 'joking bets' etc. I first read the offer as "I'll give you $100 if you can run there and back in under a minute" rather than each party being able to win the $100 which would indeed satisfy the consideration requirement.

This is confidently wrong. The requirements for contracting with the federal government are nothing like the requirements between private citizens. There are specific statutory procedures which must be followed for an enforceable government contract, including but not limited to congressional funding.

Maybe I should have quoted the part I was disagreeing with, but I thought I had made it clear.

>And you think that an offer accepted by sending an email with "Resign" in the subject line is subject to these protections?

I'm saying that if you say "accept this agreement by sending 'Resign' in the subject line" and someone does so, that's a legally valid offer and acceptance of a contract. Are standards higher for the federal government on this?

Yes there are higher standards.

Here's a quick blurb from a law firm blog, notice the "acts at its peril" language which is not the standard for private citizens contracting together:

"Authority Issues. Contract awards and contract modifications may be made on behalf of the government only by duly appointed contracting officers acting within the limits of both available funding and their delegated authority. This public policy principle of limited authority is strongly supported in the law. To the extent that a company incurs costs based upon the directions or promises of government persons without this essential authority, the company does so at its financial risk. Moreover, the contractor has the responsibility to know the scope of authority of the government official with whom it deals, and acts at its peril."

https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/publications/the-risks-a...

No, they don't. Contracts are enforced by the threat of the state's monopoly on violence. If the US goes bunk, who exactly are you going to to get your money? The courts are bunk too.

Even if the government exists, if Trump and Musk hold the payment system and you somehow get a judge to tell them to pay, they can just say no. Then what? Are you going to go Rambo? They hold a monopoly on violence and imprisonment.

This is why government's need to be set up with so many layers of indirect power and checks against direct power. this is why the military (should) have no role in governance.

If congress doesn't allocate the money, they won't be paid, even if they have a contract that says they will.

Imagine Trump decided to offer a worker a trillion dollars. He writes a contract with the worker. It is irrelevant - the worker won't be paid because the executive branch is not allowed to spend money that hasn't been authorized by congress.

worker protections exist in a world of laws.

This is not the world being offered to them, so good luck doing anything but throwing money at lawyers.

everyone who thinks laws are just something you can invoke like magic should go sit down.

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