'Disastrous': Trump’s 'haphazard' mass firings leave 'gaping holes in the government'

15 February

Donald Trump in Phoenix on December 22, 2024

Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House less than a month ago, thousands of federal government workers have been laid off.

Trump, with the help of ally Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fear their agency will suffer a similar fate, and Trump proposed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education altogether.

In an article published on February 15, six Politico reporters — Liz Crampton, Marcia Brown, Danny Nguyen, Ben Lefebvre, Catherine Morehouse and Eric Bazail-Eimil — detail the ways in which Americans are likely to be affected by these mass layoffs of federal workers.

"Americans could soon start to feel the repercussions of the Trump Administration's decision to fire thousands of government workers — from public safety to health benefits and basic services that they have come to rely on," the journalists explain. "Trump's directive to slash thousands of jobs across agencies is leaving gaping holes in the government, with thousands of workers being laid off from the Education Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs and multiple others."

The reporters continue, "At the U.S. Forest Service, where some 3400 workers are slated to be cut, wildfire prevention will be curtailed as the West grapples with a destructive fire season that has destroyed millions of acres in California. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn't spared: Almost half of the agency's 2800 probationary employees were cut, while about 400 employees appeared to have taken the 'buyout' offer, meaning the agency responsible for protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other health hazards will lose about a tenth of its workforce. That's on top of more than 2000 probationary employees fired from the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC's parent agency."

According to the Politico journalists, a source "familiar with" activities at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said that as many as 200,000 civil service workers who were in the probationary period are likely to be laid off.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is being rocked by layoffs as well.

"Haphazard cuts at GSA could be disastrous for the millions of Americans who rely on the agency's services like Login.gov, the central login system for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security," the reporters note. "The agency also streamlines much of the federal government's real estate, acquisition and other technical services, and cuts to these could have a domino effect across the government."

Read Politico's full article at this link.

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