USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them
In a statement, an Agriculture Department spokesperson told NBC News that officials are "working to swiftly rectify the situation."
The most surprising part to me is the timescale on which this unfolds. It's been only a month since inauguration and the cracks are already clearly visible. I'd thought it would take at least half a year to a year before shit hits the fan, but they are efficient at being inefficient beyond my wildest imaginations.
He's not the first to speedrun
Firing people responsible for nuclear weapons and now bird flu. That's war and pestilence. Any more horsemen of the apocalypse we want to loose?
Their salary just doubled. GoVeRnMeNt EfFiCiENcy.
Yep. I work in a government office and the contracting companies have been out in force recruiting. "Resign, we'll hire you for six-figures. double dip pay till September" best part is, due to limited office space, all the contractors kept their telework status.
It takes forever to hire people, even without the current freeze. That gap has always been filled with well paid contractors who trade long term job security for lucrative 4- year contracts.
I suspect this is the goal here. Cut goverents services, figure out which parts squeak, then hire contractors to do that work at massive profits while either receiving kickbacks or just winning through insider trading.
Ultimately, it probably will lead to higher goverents costs.
Best one I’ve seen yet.
Good luck hiring anyone competent if you can't get them back. The only reason most people take on government work is for the stability and how's that looking now? Most educated workers can earn a lot more in the private sector 💀
Isn't that the point? They want people to work in the private sector instead.
It doesn't matter that it will probably cost the government loads more to contract skilled workers from the private sector when the need inevitably arises. Long-term consequences don't even occur in the minds of those currently in charge.
Then with a new middle man, the private business owners' pockets get lined from all the work these people would've done anyway. In the end, isn't that what's really important in life? Not working to support the good of your own country, but rather, working to make the rich even richer? So fulfilling.
The point is to remove dissent in the government so that it's easier to make it a dictatorship. It has nothing to do with efficiency or whatever the fuck they're telling people.
We're going to be seeing this be a trend in these 4 years.
"YEAH WE'RE GONNA FIRE THESE PEOPLE! DEFUND THE GOVERNMENT! CUT OUT THE DEAD WEIGHT!!!"
Few days later...
"Uhhh...uhhh, we need these people! Omg what do we do? uhhhh uhhhh"
Welp, how about you do the job then if you're going to fire them.
Stupid question - What happens to all the people he's firing? Isn't he just creating an unemployment crisis?
yes
Crisis or opportunity for "job creators" to hire at lower wages?
Not a fucking chance - unless he cuts all unemployment benefits (and most of those are at the state level anyways) he's just ballooning the debt.
The US already has high unemployment, this is unlikely to impact starting wages even after these folks run out of unemployment.
Also, IIRC, getting fired like this can essentially give you a sweetheart deal on your retirement pensions especially if you resume government work. It'll depend on the specific department, union, and position, though.
‘Accidentally’.
In other news, noted medieval alchemist RFk Jr was recently confirmed as Health Secretary.
And in yet other news: Soylent Green stocks jumped 16%.
Republicans are dumber than dogshit, I swear.
Does anyone know what all this firing is going to do to the unemployment rate and economy? They are firing tens of thousands of people around the country. That's going to be a lot of people looking for jobs, no longer paying taxes, and cause a cascade effect of losing homes/assets, lower spending, which will slow the economy even more. It's just a swirling bowl of shit while Elon/Trump stand there pressing the flapper over and over hoping for a better outcome.
I already know someone in the hospitality industry who said conferences and whatnot are cancelling.
There are going to be wide ranging ripple effects from this stupidity.
Does anyone know what all this firing is going to do to the unemployment rate and economy? They are firing tens of thousands of people around the country.
I'm going to go pull up the civilian labor force participation rate, which isn't quite the same thing, but I'd think is probably more-relevant in that if you get enough shift in wages, you'll have people move into or out of that. The unemployment rate only applies to people who are actively looking for work.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
As of January 2025, there are 170,744,000 people in the labor force.
I have seen little by way on hard numbers for actual layoffs. But, okay, let's say that a hundred thousand people are laid off. That'd be about 3% of the federal government. If we shift 100,000 people from participation to non-participation, the direct impact -- and "direct" does matter, because there's at least some multiplier effect as non-government employees who support those employees in their current role get laid off -- would be about a 0.059 percentage point change in the size of the labor participation rate.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm
That wouldn't represent a very dramatic change relative to the changes we've seen over that chart.
I think a more-impactful concern isn't just "are people employed"? I mean, federal employment isn't just make-work to have people employed. Rather, it's "are the cuts we make ones where we are losing on the net?" Like, say we cut people working on Thing X. Well, now we don't have Thing X anymore. Theoretically, if we've made wise hiring decisions -- and maybe we haven't -- we shouldn't be paying people working on Thing X more than Thing X is worth to us. But...maybe Thing X is really valuable, and laying people off loses us Thing X. That could be pretty costly.
Like, one thing that people just got laid off from was, as I recall, some early-warning radar system in Hawaii. Do we need an early-warning radar system in Hawaii? I don't know. But if we do, that could be a pretty costly thing not to have in place, if what we're trying to focus on is China.
I think that this is the item being installed/operated, as it's a relatively-new early-warning radar going into Hawaii.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Discrimination_Radar
The AN/SPY-7(V)1 is the official designation of an LRDR-derivative used with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System...Missile Defense Agency has also decided to use AN/SPY-7(V)1 for the Aegis Ashore to be installed in Hawaii.
I mean, has the military actually said that it considers this unnecessary? I've seen one article, in searching from this, from someone saying that they didn't think that DOGE even understood that the people involved were working on missile defense, just cut them because they were FAA. I don't know if that's true or not, but I kind of doubt that the layoffs represent some kind of prioritized cost cutting coming from the military.
Elon/Trump stand there pressing the flapper over and over hoping for a better outcome.
Okay, that one got me good. "Better outcome." Hoooo boy.
Maybe. From a conversation last night:
god it is going to take forever to rebuild the government, if we’re even given that opportunity. it’s going to be years of finding out just how terribly trump messed things up.
He's playing the "unplug cables until someone screams" IT method.
It's the Elon way
Coming soon, again... again.
This is why u cannot make rash decisions without doing the research first.
If you do the research, it's not a rash decision anymore.
Well, you got me there. I just feel like a guy who puts shit into space, and Trump who brags about being a stable genius would realize that firing all these people without a solid plan is a horrible idea…and its probably unnecessary….unless, that is, they don’t care how the gov runs - and they are just firing people so they can funnel the funds for their own advantage…
How about we stop firing people? Dum fuqs.
Art of the deal!
Whoops!
