“The vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.”
So claimed Biden during his State of the Union address in 2022 … And, like many of his other State of the Union addresses, he made yet another promise that he had no intention of keeping.
At the time of this writing, approximately 1.1 million federal employees, or almost 50 percent of the government’s civilian workforce are eligible for telework.
Even worse, approximately 228,000 employees, or 10 percent of all civilian personnel, can work remote full-time, with absolutely “no expectation that they [work] in-person on any regular or recurring basis.”
So much for the “majority” of bureaucrats working in person again.
Which is a bit of a problem when taxpayers have funded huge, lavish buildings that apparently feature way too much empty space.
However, while Biden may have made such empty declarations in 2022, it is clear that the new Trump administration will be taking real action in 2025.
Per an article from the New York Post, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are set to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have put quite a few federal workers on notice, specifically with regards to the following: The stay-at-home party is over.
In a joint opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy made it abundantly clear that federal workers who decline to show up in person can decline to keep claiming benefits from their position.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote, “if federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”
Without a doubt. Especially if most of those federal workers are fixated on terrorizing conservatives.
Musk and Ramaswamy also outlined other clear objectives for the forthcoming DOGE, including the following: “[to] curtail administrative overgrowth,” “[to relocate] federal agencies out of the Washington area,” and “[to commence] large-scale firings.”
In other words, the DOGE duo are rather tired of millions of federal workers leeching from taxpayers while having very little to show for it.
Musk and Ramaswamy also highlighted how DOGE intends “to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required for the agency to ‘perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions.’”
In other words, the DOGE duo are cutting major league bloat, which just might (gasp!) lead to greater government efficiency.
After all, Musk canned well over half of X’s woke workforce, and the platform seems to be doing just fine regardless.
In addition, both Musk and Ramaswamy have made it clear that they aim to embolden the private sector, citing it as a viable alternative for federal workers who don’t want to show up to some giant monstrosity of a building, five days per week in the swamp.
“DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector,” the DOGE duo wrote, adding that they will ensure that all former federal employees are “treated with respect.”
“The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit,” Musk and Ramaswamy noted.
If only the Biden-Harris administration could achieve such decorum.
Author: Jane Jones
