When President Donald Trump held a televised Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, February 26, one of the people who joined him in the White House was SpaceX/Tesla/X.com CEO Elon Musk — who is heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk, during the meeting, vigorously defended the mass layoffs of federal government employees being carried out by the Trump Administration with DOGE's help.
Musk claimed the layoffs are necessary and that the U.S. will go "bankrupt" without them, but many critics of Trump, Musk and DOGE see them as detrimental both economically and from a public safety standpoint.
In an article published by the Los Angeles Times that day, reporter James Rainey takes a look at 2024 Trump voters who are losing government jobs thanks to the layoffs.
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"They voted for Donald Trump for president and for a change in the direction of the federal government," Rainey explains. "But this wasn't the kind of change they had in mind. Laid off by the (Trump) Administration in recent days from their U.S. government jobs, the Trump voters expressed dismay at what they said has been an unfocused, counterproductive and callous slashing of the federal workforce. Rather than advancing the efficiency President Trump has said he desires, the fired workers said taxpayers will be losing important services that, for example, helped military veterans cope with financial hardships, searched for drought- and pest-tolerant crops, and assured that medical providers got Medicare reimbursements."
A laid-off U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researcher, interviewed on condition of anonymity, believes the layoffs are being carried out in a reckless, haphazard fashion.
The researcher, who spent 10 years at the USDA, told the Times, "I was thinking that there would be changes. But instead of being focused, this is just going completely off the rails, chopping and slicing up parts of the government that are protecting Americans…. They are just in this shock-and-awe mode, with no concern about all the damage that is being done…. No one is asking how they are going to put all this, to put Humpty-Dumpty, back together again."
Georgia resident Jocelyn Steward, who was laid off from her job as a health insurance specialist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024 but is quite critical of the way the layoffs are being carried out.
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Steward told the Times, "Layoffs aren't easy on anybody. But there has been zero compassion for anything or anyone in this process. A lot of these federal workers are doing good work. Please just show a little empathy."
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Read the Los Angeles Times' full article at this link (subscription required).