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What are the alternatives?

Really, stay with the conversation here - what are the options that people will have if they lose their job because a "DOGE lead" deems their position no longer covered by statute? If they are ready to retire, then fine. But what about that 30 year old who just bought a house and had a kid?

If the private sector can't absorb them, even at the same level of income as they have now, what will they do?

How will they pay their mortgages or their rent? How will they put food on their table? How will they afford for any kind of healthcare?

Implicit in the "why does the private section have to absorb them?" is the belief that government workers are not deserving of their jobs and, in fact, are not deserving of any job as they are lazy or incompetent.

Perhaps that's not the particular thought that prompted the comment, but let's be honest - it's a common belief. We see it at the heart of the "return to work" cries that Musk and other MAGA supporters have been calling for -- people can't be trusted to do their work at home, they must be in a factory-like setting where their managers can oversee them. You know, crack the whip and all that.

So what's the plan for the displaced workers? Beyond their hardship, what's the expected impact on our overall economy? By what criteria shall we judge these actions as successful?

There is no plan, and the only expectation is chaos. Success will be judged by those who gain the most after the dust settles, and we should not fool ourselves to think that will include the typical person in the United States.

But I'm willing to be convinced. If there's an argument to be made for this "shove the nation off the cliff" approach, then let's hear it.

I asked this question because we don't live in a communist society. No one owes me a job just because I exist. I get a job because someone wants to hire me, and if no one wants to hire me, then I will be unemployed. When unemployed, I would get some small government assistance money, just so that I don't starve to death, and I would get free basic healthcare (medicaid), but I would probably need to move to low CoL area, and give up any luxuries I can no longer afford. This seems fair to me, but I'm open to discussion.

The memo specifically calls for initiating "large-scale reductions in force", focusing on those positions that are specifically covered by "statute or other law". That's not calling on government agencies to get better about cutting deadwood. It's calling for the wholesale elimination of positions that someone is filling right now, regardless of what that position does.

The people who may be losing their jobs may be losing them not because they're bad at them. Someone did want to hire them. That's why they have a job now. A job that may be going away for ideological reasons, and not good policy or sound choices.

These actions are not based on data that shows why this is most likely to achieve broadly supported goals based on the ideals of the United States. There is nothing to show how many people will be affected, what the likely impact on the private sector will be, and how that impact will be of overall benefit to society. It's a reactionary lashing out based this vague notion that "government is too big".

No one owes you a job because you exist, but I believe it's only fair that if you have a job, it's not taken away without cause. Otherwise you have no basis on which to make any long-term plans -- part of that whole "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" thing. Looking out for other people doesn't mean we live in a communist society, it means we live in a society that values making life better for more than just those at the top of the income ladder.

By the way, the people calling to eliminate jobs, and perhaps put displaced workers on medicaid, are often the same people calling to cut medicaid. Slap with the right, punch with the left.

How are these "large-scale reductions in force" different from recent mass layoffs in big tech? Are both equally bad? I work at a startup - they can terminate my employment at any time, for any reason. Do you think it's unfair? I can leave them at any time, for any reason. If you want to restrict their ability to fire me, then you should also restrict my ability to leave them, and I would object to that.

I believe that government has a responsibility to provide (very) basic resources for its citizens, regardless of employment status. I'm talking about social security and healthcare programs available to those in need. For example, a monthly check for $1,000 should cover basic living expenses (simple groceries, a room for rent in a poor area of a poor state, a simple cell phone, public transportation, etc), and medicaid should cover most common health problems. If someone wants more than that, they should acquire skills to do a job, convince others to hire them, and work well enough to keep the job. And if that job is gone (for any reason), they should be ready to acquire new skills to do a different job. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, they should be content with getting by on that welfare check.

> How are these "large-scale reductions in force" different from recent mass layoffs in big tech?

One is eliminating people in necessary to functions the executive branch is legally mandated to perform, the other is not.

> Are both equally bad?

Certainly not for the same reason; they are generally unrelated.

> I work at a startup - they can terminate my employment at any time, for any reason. Do you think it's unfair?

Whether private sector at-will employment is unfair is irrelevant here, so its just a distraction to even discuss it any significant way.

Executive branch officials are not the managers of a private sector firm, and the legal, ethical, and other constraints on their behavior are different. Aside from the fact that the government is limited in way private actors are not (public employees have a property interest in their employment and the government as an employer is still the government, and sondue process failures related to property interests of their employees, who are people and thus possess 5th Amendment rights, are a Constitutional violation), executive branch officials are generally given less leeway in law over employment (other than of narrow classes of mostly top executive officers) in executive branch departments (outside the Executive Office of the President) than is the case for private managers under the governing rules adopted in most private companies.

You're talking about something else. This discussion started from the claim that private sector has to absorb the eliminated government workers.

If I understand you correctly, you claim that necessary government positions have been eliminated, and therefore, government is unable to perform some of its important functions. If this is true, sooner or later these positions will be reinstated and filled: if enough people are negatively affected, their voices will be heard by the next election.

On the other hand, Twitter laid off ~80% of its employees, including roles seen by some as important, and yet, it's running just fine today, so I guess we'll see about the government.

> On the other hand, Twitter laid off ~80% of its employees, including roles seen by some as important, and yet, it's running just fine today, so I guess we'll see about the government.

Except for reportedly losing 84% of its revenue, and apart from getting into legal trouble by not having staff fulfilling legally required roles…

If the people of the USA went into this eyes wide open and actually want to strip the federal government down to the bone and turn it into something much more like the EU — where states are sovereign and the "federal" part that remains is the bare minimum for smoothing inter-state trade, freedom for states to leave the union when they feel like it, and only a very small fraction of each state's income is shared with other states — then I'm sure they'll be very happy with this outcome.

But… are you sure you meant to do that? 'cause one thing it ain't gonna do is make y'all "great again". EU doesn't even have a single unified military (that's a matter for member states); and despite the Euro existing, not all member states use it as their currency.

There's a lot of room between a loose union of independent countries, like EU, and a federal system like in US. There's a huge difference between a state like California, and a state like Louisiana. Perhaps we should let them govern themselves more.

Re: Twitter - did it lose its revenue because of the layoffs, or because of some stupid things Elon said/did?

> Re: Twitter - did it lose its revenue because of the layoffs, or because of some stupid things Elon said/did?

Both, in so far as one of the things he did was lay off content moderation and that this led to brands seeing their names and adverts associated with content that harmed those brands.

Compare Twitter to Tesla stock price to separate the effect of man himself from the layoffs: his personal gaffes have short-lived impacts on the price, but Tesla's stock price still went up.

Why do you want a country full of people who can't eat, who lose their homes, who can't take care of their kids?

Well it's that or they go unemployed.

People usually need to put food on their tables.

I mean, yes, we can always choose to shrink the American economy and cause a recession or depression. We can certainly go down that path. It's just not a path most probably want to go down.

I would much prefer nearly other alternative...

But at this point I'm rooting for pain and lots of it. It's literally the only way we're going to get this ruling party out of power. And even that might not be enough.

The dark part of me is like 'Ok, yes, I hope they implement their stupid plans so that people can see how stupid they are'. The sane part of me then thinks 'Well, a lot of people will be hurt and many die if they do.'

Well, it's kind of a trolley car-ish problem to me.

When there is no longer an option of zero people being harmed, we start naturally start thinking about which is the lesser amount of harm -- X people being harmed during a quick crash and burn of Trumpian rule, or Y people being harmed over a greater number of years of sustained Trumpian rule.

I do of course also hope that I am wrong about all of this.

Every government faces that with almost every decision. Every aircraft carrier represents something like 40 never-built schools or 15 never-built hospitals.

> I do of course also hope that I am wrong about all of this.

You and me both.

    Every government faces that with almost every 
    decision. Every aircraft carrier represents 
    something like 40 never-built schools or 15 
    never-built hospitals.

Well, it's complicated, right? When the government spends money it doesn't really leave the economy. $10bil on an aircraft carrier is also tens of thousands of jobs... half of the money goes right back to the government in taxes... etc.

Complicated? Only from a certain point of view.

The USA has a workforce of something like 170 million. No matter how this is financed, no matter what form of government you have, their collective output is that of 170 million people.

You get some of them to build, maintain, and crew an aircraft carrier, then those specific people are not going to be available for building, maintaining, and staffing 40 or so schools.

That's not a realistic way of thinking about it. From multiple angles.

Back of the envelope math: there are about 26,000 sailors staffing the nation's aircraft carriers. Let's round it up to 50,000 to account for the folks who build them, admin, etc.

That's 0.03% of the available workforce. It's not a remotely significant reason why our school system isn't great.

Additionally, the demographic of people who build and serve on aircraft carriers likely does not overlap significantly with the people who would otherwise be staffing schools.