Musk, Ramaswamy lay out plans for ‘mass’ federal layoffs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There a lots of fed jobs that don't require college. Facilities jobs and laborers. At my old agency, non-college facilities workers on 3d shift make >$100k/year. And good for them. You want to maintain elevators on the 11 pm - 7 a.m. shift?

There are very few facilities workers who are federal employees. Those jobs have been contracted out almost everywhere.

This is completely inaccurate. It's hard to contract out facilities jobs because contractors cannot be in charge of procuring other contractors. In facilities, a variety of issues arise (specialized maintenance, replacing systems like HVAC, etc) that require purchasing. Contractors can't do that by law, they can't commit government funds.

There’s are contractors running all the O&M on every military base we have. This can be and is contracted out.

Example:
https://usfcr.com/search/opportunities/?oppId=efc5f91540ac43a28b8f61f61f51200a

The Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Installation Readiness Center on behalf of the Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Carson, is issuing a solicitation for a contractor to provide Base Operations Support Services at the U.S. Army Fort Carson, CO.Description of Services:The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary as defined in this PWS. Work includes all required maintenance, labor, materials and repairs to facilities, structures, buildings, and utilities that are classified as real property, and Army Training and Evaluation Center non-real properties, unless otherwise stated in this contract, to include installed building equipment as defined in Army Regulation (AR) 420-1, Army Facilities Management. The following is a list of Common Level of Services (CLS) that will be included in this acquisition:

[Anonymous]

So funny that MAGA is in the tank for a foreigner and an anchor baby after all of their blather about immigrants. They can start their mass deportations with these two clowns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So funny that MAGA is in the tank for a foreigner and an anchor baby after all of their blather about immigrants. They can start their mass deportations with these two clowns.

And I think they fall into two camps - 1. the really dumb MAGAs who just go along with their favored lines of propaganda never questioning it and totally self-unaware and clueless to how inconsistent it is and 2. the less dumb ones who think they are smarter than the rest of us by thinking they can fool us with their bizarre and convoluted rationalizations about how it's not at all hypocritical or inconsistent - sorry but we see it for what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There a lots of fed jobs that don't require college. Facilities jobs and laborers. At my old agency, non-college facilities workers on 3d shift make >$100k/year. And good for them. You want to maintain elevators on the 11 pm - 7 a.m. shift?

There are very few facilities workers who are federal employees. Those jobs have been contracted out almost everywhere.

This is completely inaccurate. It's hard to contract out facilities jobs because contractors cannot be in charge of procuring other contractors. In facilities, a variety of issues arise (specialized maintenance, replacing systems like HVAC, etc) that require purchasing. Contractors can't do that by law, they can't commit government funds.

There’s are contractors running all the O&M on every military base we have. This can be and is contracted out.

Example:
https://usfcr.com/search/opportunities/?oppId=efc5f91540ac43a28b8f61f61f51200a

The Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Installation Readiness Center on behalf of the Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Carson, is issuing a solicitation for a contractor to provide Base Operations Support Services at the U.S. Army Fort Carson, CO.Description of Services:The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary as defined in this PWS. Work includes all required maintenance, labor, materials and repairs to facilities, structures, buildings, and utilities that are classified as real property, and Army Training and Evaluation Center non-real properties, unless otherwise stated in this contract, to include installed building equipment as defined in Army Regulation (AR) 420-1, Army Facilities Management. The following is a list of Common Level of Services (CLS) that will be included in this acquisition:

That's work that probably could be done for much cheaper by federal employees but thanks to A-76 everything that can be outsourced is forced to be outsourced, and it's Republicans who have pushed for all of that privatization and outsourcing so that companies can profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So funny that MAGA is in the tank for a foreigner and an anchor baby after all of their blather about immigrants. They can start their mass deportations with these two clowns.

And I think they fall into two camps - 1. the really dumb MAGAs who just go along with their favored lines of propaganda never questioning it and totally self-unaware and clueless to how inconsistent it is and 2. the less dumb ones who think they are smarter than the rest of us by thinking they can fool us with their bizarre and convoluted rationalizations about how it's not at all hypocritical or inconsistent - sorry but we see it for what it is.

Perfect analysis!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There a lots of fed jobs that don't require college. Facilities jobs and laborers. At my old agency, non-college facilities workers on 3d shift make >$100k/year. And good for them. You want to maintain elevators on the 11 pm - 7 a.m. shift?

There are very few facilities workers who are federal employees. Those jobs have been contracted out almost everywhere.

This is completely inaccurate. It's hard to contract out facilities jobs because contractors cannot be in charge of procuring other contractors. In facilities, a variety of issues arise (specialized maintenance, replacing systems like HVAC, etc) that require purchasing. Contractors can't do that by law, they can't commit government funds.

There’s are contractors running all the O&M on every military base we have. This can be and is contracted out.

Example:
https://usfcr.com/search/opportunities/?oppId=efc5f91540ac43a28b8f61f61f51200a

The Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Installation Readiness Center on behalf of the Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Carson, is issuing a solicitation for a contractor to provide Base Operations Support Services at the U.S. Army Fort Carson, CO.Description of Services:The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary as defined in this PWS. Work includes all required maintenance, labor, materials and repairs to facilities, structures, buildings, and utilities that are classified as real property, and Army Training and Evaluation Center non-real properties, unless otherwise stated in this contract, to include installed building equipment as defined in Army Regulation (AR) 420-1, Army Facilities Management. The following is a list of Common Level of Services (CLS) that will be included in this acquisition:

That's work that probably could be done for much cheaper by federal employees but thanks to A-76 everything that can be outsourced is forced to be outsourced, and it's Republicans who have pushed for all of that privatization and outsourcing so that companies can profit.

Ok, but they aren’t, which shows PPs claim that you cannot contract facilities jobs is pure BS.

[Anonymous]

This debate about laying off the federal workforce is stupid and clearly meant to be a distraction and scare tactic. Is their government waste? Sure, just as any large organization has waste and inefficiency. However that waste greatly pales in comparison to the good that government civil service workers perform daily.

The U.S.A. is a trillion dollar economy. The fact that every four years we elect someone (potentially new) to head this Republic and have managed to do so without destroying it is a feat and is in large part due the federal workforce. As they are what continues and bridges knowledge between administrations regardless of politics. They are the ones who read all the lines of Congress’s legislation and then point out ambiguities and contradictions and also help implement programs and plans.

Now you have folks who have spent their lives not in service of the American people but in service of seeking the greatest profit from the American people in charge of the republic. Is this what people voted for? Yes. But one must question why these same folks seem really interested in getting rid of those who spend their lives in service of the American people and as guardrails against tyranny, chaos and confusion regardless of who is in office.

Meanwhile many in Congress seem to be staying there longer and longer while getting richer and richer and forcing our government institutions to pay ridiculous cost to private institutions. Maybe just maybe it’s not the civil service workers who are the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is just proving their points. You feds live in a bubble and are completely disconnected from reality.

So is MAGA if you believe firing the government makes for a stronger nation.

Yes they need to work in the private sector and pay more taxes than they take

36 trillion in debt needs more tax money and less spending

No problem, we’ll just take away your social security and Medicare.

You could fire every single federal employee and not fix this. To balance the budget defense needs to be cut, it's out largest expense. Next is social security and Medicare. Cut all that and you can balance the budget without firing anyone.

Use AI to take the place of all FEDs working from home.

Big savings.

Then when they work in the private sector they are contributing instead of taking

Hah! You don't know much about how AI works. It's GIGO. If you want it to work perfectly it needs to be fed cleaned-up data or it will repeat all the human errors and foibles it learns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is just proving their points. You feds live in a bubble and are completely disconnected from reality.

So is MAGA if you believe firing the government makes for a stronger nation.

Yes they need to work in the private sector and pay more taxes than they take

36 trillion in debt needs more tax money and less spending

No problem, we’ll just take away your social security and Medicare.

You could fire every single federal employee and not fix this. To balance the budget defense needs to be cut, it's out largest expense. Next is social security and Medicare. Cut all that and you can balance the budget without firing anyone.

Use AI to take the place of all FEDs working from home.

Big savings.

Then when they work in the private sector they are contributing instead of taking

Hah! You don't know much about how AI works. It's GIGO. If you want it to work perfectly it needs to be fed cleaned-up data or it will repeat all the human errors and foibles it learns.

It would take modernization of a lot of systems, to clean up and document the data, develop semantic models for the data, build APIs for serving the data, working with subject matter experts to catalog and develop all of the use cases, of which there are no doubt a huge number, and then building out and testing the AI models, and even then you will probably still need some level of ongoing curating and maintaining and retraining of the models, oversight, and in many cases there may still be some need for man-in-the-middle human interactions for many types of use cases. This would take recruiting/training/retaining an army of thousands of experts in AI, data science, data governance and data management, and would take several years to implement.

And that ain't gonna happen with the current rhetoric of gutting the federal workforce and slashing budgets first and foremost.

So if you want AI you need to first do the opposite - fund and staff up. If you think otherwise, then you are completely clueless about how anything actually works.

[Anonymous]

My agency recently gave up multiple buildings, a lease to parking garage, and plans to offload another building in the future. Current guidance command freeing up real estate when occupancy is below certain levels. And we’ve saved a lot of money getting rid of space.

Relatedly, we finalized new CBAs that enshrined remote work for a big percentage of our workforce. And our other programs are statutory AND predated Covid.

So it would be uphill for them to revoke remote work.

As far as AI- it’s not permitted to be used in our agency. Full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My agency recently gave up multiple buildings, a lease to parking garage, and plans to offload another building in the future. Current guidance command freeing up real estate when occupancy is below certain levels. And we’ve saved a lot of money getting rid of space.

Relatedly, we finalized new CBAs that enshrined remote work for a big percentage of our workforce. And our other programs are statutory AND predated Covid.

So it would be uphill for them to revoke remote work.

As far as AI- it’s not permitted to be used in our agency. Full stop.

SSA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There a lots of fed jobs that don't require college. Facilities jobs and laborers. At my old agency, non-college facilities workers on 3d shift make >$100k/year. And good for them. You want to maintain elevators on the 11 pm - 7 a.m. shift?

There are very few facilities workers who are federal employees. Those jobs have been contracted out almost everywhere.

This is completely inaccurate. It's hard to contract out facilities jobs because contractors cannot be in charge of procuring other contractors. In facilities, a variety of issues arise (specialized maintenance, replacing systems like HVAC, etc) that require purchasing. Contractors can't do that by law, they can't commit government funds.

There’s are contractors running all the O&M on every military base we have. This can be and is contracted out.

Example:
https://usfcr.com/search/opportunities/?oppId=efc5f91540ac43a28b8f61f61f51200a

The Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Installation Readiness Center on behalf of the Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Carson, is issuing a solicitation for a contractor to provide Base Operations Support Services at the U.S. Army Fort Carson, CO.Description of Services:The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary as defined in this PWS. Work includes all required maintenance, labor, materials and repairs to facilities, structures, buildings, and utilities that are classified as real property, and Army Training and Evaluation Center non-real properties, unless otherwise stated in this contract, to include installed building equipment as defined in Army Regulation (AR) 420-1, Army Facilities Management. The following is a list of Common Level of Services (CLS) that will be included in this acquisition:

That's work that probably could be done for much cheaper by federal employees but thanks to A-76 everything that can be outsourced is forced to be outsourced, and it's Republicans who have pushed for all of that privatization and outsourcing so that companies can profit.

TY!

Some folks believe that outsourcing = job done at lower cost and that is a hell no. Private companies are not offering to do this work for less, they are in it solely for profit.

[Anonymous]

Looks like Vivek is getting voted off the island. He's been told to be the temp Senator to take Vance's place. Guess jos little - white MAGA too lazy & coddled to have good paying jobs was too much. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/15/vivek-ramaswamy-ohio-senate-trump/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like Vivek is getting voted off the island. He's been told to be the temp Senator to take Vance's place. Guess jos little - white MAGA too lazy & coddled to have good paying jobs was too much. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/15/vivek-ramaswamy-ohio-senate-trump/

Vivek pretty much ended his political career when he wrote that condescending post, it was untrue and mean, I say this as an Indian American. I doubt he can win in Ohio, RW loathes him now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There a lots of fed jobs that don't require college. Facilities jobs and laborers. At my old agency, non-college facilities workers on 3d shift make >$100k/year. And good for them. You want to maintain elevators on the 11 pm - 7 a.m. shift?

There are very few facilities workers who are federal employees. Those jobs have been contracted out almost everywhere.

This is completely inaccurate. It's hard to contract out facilities jobs because contractors cannot be in charge of procuring other contractors. In facilities, a variety of issues arise (specialized maintenance, replacing systems like HVAC, etc) that require purchasing. Contractors can't do that by law, they can't commit government funds.

There’s are contractors running all the O&M on every military base we have. This can be and is contracted out.

Example:
https://usfcr.com/search/opportunities/?oppId=efc5f91540ac43a28b8f61f61f51200a

The Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Installation Readiness Center on behalf of the Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Carson, is issuing a solicitation for a contractor to provide Base Operations Support Services at the U.S. Army Fort Carson, CO.Description of Services:The Contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary as defined in this PWS. Work includes all required maintenance, labor, materials and repairs to facilities, structures, buildings, and utilities that are classified as real property, and Army Training and Evaluation Center non-real properties, unless otherwise stated in this contract, to include installed building equipment as defined in Army Regulation (AR) 420-1, Army Facilities Management. The following is a list of Common Level of Services (CLS) that will be included in this acquisition:

That's work that probably could be done for much cheaper by federal employees but thanks to A-76 everything that can be outsourced is forced to be outsourced, and it's Republicans who have pushed for all of that privatization and outsourcing so that companies can profit.

TY!

Some folks believe that outsourcing = job done at lower cost and that is a hell no. Private companies are not offering to do this work for less, they are in it solely for profit.

Any fed who has worked with a contractor knows that it is faster for feds to do the work themselves, and you will get a better product. Contractors turn in the bare minimum. They aren't in it for the long haul, so quality of product isn't as important to them.