Tag Archives: jobs

Hurt Feelings

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Lots of ex-Federal employees are feeling the pain of being terminated. Many in the private sector think that’s unimportant, and they’re correct to think so.

Catherine Byrd, who owned and ran her own business before she retired:

I don’t feel bad for them a bit. I’ve worked in the private sector all my life[.]

She noted that she’d been fired a number of times in her early working days, and said,

You know what you do? You go out and find another job, and there are plenty of jobs to find.

As indeed there are, even if not in an area that lets the fired bureaucrat follow his bliss.

And so, we get the hurt feelings of government employees who have been terminated. Recently fired Meredith Lopez is upset over the alleged general callousness toward federal workers being fired.

I think people forget that working in public service is not just a job, it can be a calling for many people[.]
For me, it is really about the ability to help people and communities on a personal level[.]

Judy Cameron is upset at the very concept of being fired from her government job.

All I know is I did not appreciate being fired. Let me do something wrong to fire me… It was just “Oh here, let’s kick you out like trash.”

And, of course—because that’s where the clicks and eyeballs are—the press hypes these things while ignoring the fact that none of them incur an obligation on the part of any employer, much less the government, to retain folks just because those folks want a particular job.

No. A government employee needs to be terminated if the job position itself is duplicative, excess to the government’s objective needs, or otherwise unnecessary. Recall, during the Obama Shutdown of 2011, the EPA acknowledged that most of its employees were unnecessary, furloughing 90% of them for the duration of the shutdown.

A government employee needs to be terminated if his performance is subpar as measured objectively, which requires a cessation of inflating annual reports and the even harder step of eliminating union objections to terminating for merit reasons.

He Thinks It’s a Countermove

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Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) is making a big deal out of his offer of jobs in the Pennsylvania State government to those terminated Federal bureaucrats who would be interested.

The commonwealth recognizes that a workforce of dedicated and talented public servants is the backbone of a responsive government that can ensure the efficient and effective delivery of services for Pennsylvanians[.]

Kudos to Shapiro, I say, for all that his motive is so highly questionable. There’s no doubt that the vast majority of Federal bureaucrats are talented, dedicated workers, and being offered jobs at the State level that match their skill sets is a Good Thing.

None of that, though, alters the simple fact that Federal employment is not an inherent right and that Federal bureaucrats are not entitled to any Federal job, much less any Federal sinecure. Neither does any of that alter the simple fact that these Federal bureaucrats are unnecessary to the function of the Federal government, and their redundancy should be recognized and acted on.

Indeed, those making the Federal cuts have said from the outset that the bureaucrats’ firings do not in any way impugn their skill, talent, or dedication—it’s simply that they are not needed; their job positions themselves are redundant.

Another Precinct Pipes Up

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The Merit Systems Protection Board has ordered the Department of Agriculture to

temporarily reinstate all of its nearly 6,000 probationary employees, who were fired by the Trump administration last month.

Probationary employees are just that—in trial periods of their employment—and they can be fired for any reason at all during their probationary period. Merit, or its lack, need have nothing to do with their termination.

This board is an independent quasi-judicial agency whose three members are Presidential nominees subject to Senate confirmation. As such, the board is an arm of the Executive Branch and so subject to the control of the President, as the Supreme Court ruled in the matter of firing the chairman of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

This is another “independent” agency that’s out of control and needs to be brought to heel.

In Which a District Judge is Mistaken

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DC District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from firing any CFPB employee except for cause, and cannot proceed with any large-scale reduction-in-force of staff. The judge is badly mistaken here.

The question centers on this: either the CFPB is part of the Executive Branch, or it is not. The answer is muddied, though not badly, by the then-Progressive-Democrat-controlled Congress’ cynical creation of the Board as funded by its own draws on the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States—draws of whatever magnitude the Board demands and that the Fed would be bound to pay up—and of its Chairman being unremovable by the President.

If the Board is not a part of the Executive Branch, then by its Design Specification, it is a fourth branch of the Federal government. It was designed to operate wholly independently of the Executive Branch and given free reign [sic] to operate similarly independently of Congress, which has wholly yielded up its purse string control of it. That would make the Board an unconstitutional creation whose existence must be ended on that ground.

However, the Supreme Court has ruled that, contra that Congress’ construction, the Board Chairman can, in fact, be removed by the President for any or no reason at all, because the Board is, in fact, an Executive Branch agency, and so under the control of the President, just the same as are all other agencies and Departments of the Executive Branch.

Since the Board is an Executive Branch agency, the President has the hiring and firing authority he needs to terminate any and all Board members and employees, subject only to already existing due process requirements. These requirements are in flux, too, as the President has considerable, although not total, authority to alter the nature of those requirements.

I look for the Supreme Court to rule in the administration’s favor (the DC Circuit is unlikely to overrule her).

Two More Panic-Mongering Lawsuits

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Newly installed OMB Director and Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought has moved to curb the abuses of the CFPB by ordering staff to issue no more new rules, to stop new investigations, and to suspend existing investigations and litigations pending a general review of the CFPB’s activities. Vought also has authorized DOGE personnel to audit CFPB’s financial activities, including its payroll.

The National Treasury Employees Union is mightily upset, and it has filed two suits to stop these cease and desists and the audit. The NTEU alleged in the first case

It is substantially likely that these initial directives are a precursor to a purge of CFPB’s workforce, which is now prohibited from fulfilling the agency’s statutory mission[.]

In the second case, the union alleged that the CFPB

granted access, and by extension, disclosed employee records to individuals associated with DOGE without employee consent to such disclosure.

I will be brief, and the NTEU will not find it pleasant.

The union’s first case is entirely speculative as no harm has yet occurred, nor has the union alleged any harm actually has occurred. The suit should be tossed on that ground alone. Regarding the union’s allegation of prohibition, this is pure fantasy: the activities are HIAed, not prohibited, and whether the CFPB is functioning as statutorily required in this context is a political assessment, not one that is justiciable.

In the second case, the union’s allegations are, once again, purely speculative, and no harm has yet occurred, nor has the union alleged any actual harm has occurred. All it has done is raise a series of scary boogieman possibilities for some time in a nebulous future. This case ought to be tossed on that ground as well. Regarding the consent allegation, the CFPB’s employees—all Federal government employees—agreed to have their pay records audited on demand when they signed on to their government employment. That allegation also should be tossed even if the larger case is continued.

The evident frivolousness of these two suits is one more reason why government unions are destructively counterproductive and why the sinecure nature of civil service jobs needs to be severely curtailed.