On Tuesday, a majority of the nation’s 2.3 million federal workers received an email offering them the opportunity to resign and receive full pay and benefits until the end of September.
The move was straight out of corporate America’s playbook, including many media organizations dealing with declining revenue. It also echoed the dramatic Twitter workforce reduction implemented two years ago by Elon Musk, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting guru in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
On the face of it, the offer seems like a good deal, as such job-cutting exercises go. Say yes and you can take a fully paid vacation for the next eight months if you’d like. Better than being summarily let go and we know of packages in the private sector that have been far less generous.
The trouble is, the frenetic pace at which the Trump administration is trying to remake the vast federal government into its own image is showing early cracks, particularly in the area of competence. Speaking on the Senate floor, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a state that’s home to a huge number of federal workers, said there’s no legal authority for the administration to pay people not to work.
“If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you,” Kaine said.
We don’t know that that’s true, but what we do know is that some of the most dramatic steps the Trump people have tried to take in these early days have quickly unraveled. The most obvious case in point was the directive issued Monday night by the White House Office of Management and Budget “freezing” all federal grants and loans while they were under review to ensure they aligned with Trump’s priorities. For much of Tuesday, it was unclear whether critical programs like Medicaid were included. The administration scrambled late Tuesday to clarify that Medicaid, food stamps and the like weren’t affected and then, on Wednesday, it rescinded the order altogether.
On Tuesday, as the effect of the OMB directive still was unclear, Gov. JB Pritzker harshly criticized Trump for throwing the lives of millions of Americans into temporary and needless turmoil. These are people, Pritzker said, “who rely on federal assistance to pay their rent, people who need help paying their utility bills, parents who need critical programs like Head Start for quality, affordable child care, and 3.5 million Illinoisans who get their health insurance through Medicaid.”
Pritzker was correct to spotlight those truly at risk: ordinary folks, many of them struggling to get by day after day and many who surely voted for Trump.
MAGA 2.0 is clearly better prepared than when Trump won the White House the first time, but the chaotic nature of Trumpian governance still feels all too familiar.
Back to the buyout offer. Whether or not the Trump administration will “stiff” those workers who resign per this initiative, the effort may well be deemed to have exceeded Trump’s authority. If that happens, those who raised their hand for the buyout will have sent the message to their bosses that they don’t want to work under this administration, which isn’t an explicit communication any worker wants to make if they’re intending to continue in their jobs.
The president’s frustrations with the federal bureaucracy — what he and his supporters regularly refer to as the “deep state” — are well known, and Trump was elected having promised to try to curb that expansive workforce. He’s entitled to pursue his vision.
But he and top advisers don’t seem to understand that there are laws and rules with which they must comply. Perhaps they are just engaging in an elaborate series of trial balloons on what they can and can’t do. Either way, for those who aren’t hard-core MAGA supporters, but who nevertheless voted for Trump, patience is likely to wear thin if this series of chaotic, short-lived jolts to the system continues with little to show for it.
As we’ve stated multiple times in the case of Chicago, currently run by a man who fashions himself a “transformer,” plans to disrupt a status quo you consider unacceptable are all well and good. But if rank incompetence routinely accompanies those efforts, all that is produced is frustration and even anger. This truism holds, whether the disrupter is gunning for the status quo from the left or the right.
More competence and preparation are needed from the Trump administration, and quickly. Workforce reductions via buyouts may well be an excellent way to trim government spending. If so, first make sure they pass legal muster, and if they don’t, seek to change the law.
Then ensure that what is promised can and will be delivered to hardworking Americans. That’s how our government is supposed to work.
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