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I think part of the argument on the other side is that if the forest service better managed its finances and revenues they wouldn’t have to lay people off. I am

I think part of the argument on the other side is that if the forest service better managed its finances and revenues they wouldn’t have to lay people off. I am positive there is a way they could have kept those employees but they (possibly correctly) prioritized spending elsewhere

jacobjjacob 2y ago
AFAIK, this affected probationary employees of all or most agencies. So I’m not sure how this argument makes sense as something the Forest Service did wrong or could have prevented. Also, the government should be efficient but shouldn’t be required to break even or profit… it’s a public good.
stvltvs 2y ago
There's very little evidence that actual financial mismanagement determined what departments were targeted for layoffs so far. They might say that's why they're doing it, but are tight lipped with any evidence to support it. From the outside, it seems like they just want to cut as many federal jobs as they can get away with without consideration for the impacts because they want to destroy the administrative state and maybe privatize its functions.
text0404 2y ago
government agencies sometimes operate at a loss. that's fine - as citizens of a functioning society, we pay taxes to maintain services which improve shared, public life.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
They don’t get to decide that. They are paid by the federal government, any revenue they get goes back to the federal government. Trump/Musk are laying off federal workers regardless of how much revenue they bring in, or if their jobs are self sustaining or even profitable based on the fees they bring in. For example, he laid medical equipment inspector whose jobs are completely paid for by fees.
rainsford 2y ago
That argument only makes sense if you don't know how government spending works or what the top-down direction was. Agencies generally aren't just given a big sack of money to do whatever with. It's allocated for specific types of things in specific amounts, and in particular, employee pay is separate from other things and governed mostly by a given number of employee slots rather than a specific dollar amount. The forest service couldn't save those jobs by just shifting funding from, say, vehicle purchases without much higher level approval. It doesn't really matter though because the direction to the forest service and everyone else wasn't "reduce your budget by $Y". It was "fire all your new employees immediately". There was no opportunity for the forest service to "better manage its finances". I think giving the forest service and other agencies time and flexibility to figure out how to be more efficient based on specific domain knowledge is a fantastic idea. Even if that ultimately did lead to layoffs, at least it would be an informed decision. That's not at all what's happening, and whatever excuses proponents of this approach come up with, firing people like the woman in the article is exactly what was expected.

jacobjjacob 2y ago

AFAIK, this affected probationary employees of all or most agencies. So I’m not sure how this argument makes sense as something the Forest Service did wrong or could have prevented. Also, the government should be efficient but shouldn’t be required to break even or profit… it’s a public good.

stvltvs 2y ago

There's very little evidence that actual financial mismanagement determined what departments were targeted for layoffs so far. They might say that's why they're doing it, but are tight lipped with any evidence to support it. From the outside, it seems like they just want to cut as many federal jobs as they can get away with without consideration for the impacts because they want to destroy the administrative state and maybe privatize its functions.

text0404 2y ago

government agencies sometimes operate at a loss. that's fine - as citizens of a functioning society, we pay taxes to maintain services which improve shared, public life.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

They don’t get to decide that. They are paid by the federal government, any revenue they get goes back to the federal government. Trump/Musk are laying off federal workers regardless of how much revenue they bring in, or if their jobs are self sustaining or even profitable based on the fees they bring in. For example, he laid medical equipment inspector whose jobs are completely paid for by fees.

rainsford 2y ago

That argument only makes sense if you don't know how government spending works or what the top-down direction was. Agencies generally aren't just given a big sack of money to do whatever with. It's allocated for specific types of things in specific amounts, and in particular, employee pay is separate from other things and governed mostly by a given number of employee slots rather than a specific dollar amount. The forest service couldn't save those jobs by just shifting funding from, say, vehicle purchases without much higher level approval. It doesn't really matter though because the direction to the forest service and everyone else wasn't "reduce your budget by $Y". It was "fire all your new employees immediately". There was no opportunity for the forest service to "better manage its finances". I think giving the forest service and other agencies time and flexibility to figure out how to be more efficient based on specific domain knowledge is a fantastic idea. Even if that ultimately did lead to layoffs, at least it would be an informed decision. That's not at all what's happening, and whatever excuses proponents of this approach come up with, firing people like the woman in the article is exactly what was expected.