Questions about DOGE and RTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the plan:

1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use "advanced technology" (AI?) to have them identify "thousands" of regulations to cut across government

2) Give Trump a list of "thousands" of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination

3) Identify "the minimum number of employees" necessary to maintain each agency's core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)

4) Cut the federal employees - Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ "incentives for early retirement," but we have no details

5) Cut programs where where Congress's specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)

6) Approve a "temporary suspension of payments" amid "large-scale audits" (Details, specifics hugely unclear)

7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments

All seems to be *w/o Congress*

Fight whatever you need to in courts

Sigh. They are so stupid that I feel embarrassed for them.

widespread “reductions in force” wouldn’t need any new legislation right? Instead of fights over RTO shouldn’t federal workers be more concerned with never being able to RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the plan:

1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use "advanced technology" (AI?) to have them identify "thousands" of regulations to cut across government

2) Give Trump a list of "thousands" of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination

3) Identify "the minimum number of employees" necessary to maintain each agency's core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)

4) Cut the federal employees - Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ "incentives for early retirement," but we have no details

5) Cut programs where where Congress's specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)

6) Approve a "temporary suspension of payments" amid "large-scale audits" (Details, specifics hugely unclear)

7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments

All seems to be *w/o Congress*

Fight whatever you need to in courts

Sigh. They are so stupid that I feel embarrassed for them.

widespread “reductions in force” wouldn’t need any new legislation right? Instead of fights over RTO shouldn’t federal workers be more concerned with never being able to RTO?

I think most hope it won’t get to that point and they take the easy route and do a RTO “layoff” and buyouts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the plan:

1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use "advanced technology" (AI?) to have them identify "thousands" of regulations to cut across government

2) Give Trump a list of "thousands" of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination

3) Identify "the minimum number of employees" necessary to maintain each agency's core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)

4) Cut the federal employees - Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ "incentives for early retirement," but we have no details

5) Cut programs where where Congress's specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)

6) Approve a "temporary suspension of payments" amid "large-scale audits" (Details, specifics hugely unclear)

7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments

All seems to be *w/o Congress*

Fight whatever you need to in courts

Sigh. They are so stupid that I feel embarrassed for them.

widespread “reductions in force” wouldn’t need any new legislation right? Instead of fights over RTO shouldn’t federal workers be more concerned with never being able to RTO?

If the activities being RIF’d were authorized and appropriated by Congress, I don’t see how Trump can delete them by EO. Agency heads can trim via attrition by not target individuals. I think ultimately Congress needs to zero out appropriations and/or change authorization bills before wholesale RIFs occur. That can happen but not for another FY.

At the end of the day it isn’t Elon or even Trump that will be firing Federal employees. It will be agency HR officers, and they are going to go by the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know there are no answers but our office has hired quite a few remote workers. They actually make less because no DC locality pay. I wonder how they handle that.

My office office also has random people. Before full time remote they wound find them space in a local fed office to work in. There is usually some option unless you are in a very rural area They come to the office to work with no one of course but we know this has nothing to do with that.

[Anonymous]

I’m curious where independent agencies will be in all of this. My agency receives zero appropriations from Congress; we are statutorily funded by fees levied on industry. And that doesn’t change unless you change the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know there are no answers but our office has hired quite a few remote workers. They actually make less because no DC locality pay. I wonder how they handle that.

My office office also has random people. Before full time remote they wound find them space in a local fed office to work in. There is usually some option unless you are in a very rural area They come to the office to work with no one of course but we know this has nothing to do with that.

I’m fully remote and would gladly go into some kind of fed office near me. What I’m afraid of is that they will require me to move to DC which I’m not in a position to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious where independent agencies will be in all of this. My agency receives zero appropriations from Congress; we are statutorily funded by fees levied on industry. And that doesn’t change unless you change the law.

There are so many nuances that I’m sure they haven’t even considered. Going to be interesting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the plan:

1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use "advanced technology" (AI?) to have them identify "thousands" of regulations to cut across government

2) Give Trump a list of "thousands" of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination

3) Identify "the minimum number of employees" necessary to maintain each agency's core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)

4) Cut the federal employees - Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ "incentives for early retirement," but we have no details

5) Cut programs where where Congress's specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)

6) Approve a "temporary suspension of payments" amid "large-scale audits" (Details, specifics hugely unclear)

7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments

All seems to be *w/o Congress*

Fight whatever you need to in courts

Number 1 is….dumb. They can’t even get into the buildings without access (which they won’t have since they aren’t federal employees or even apparently contractors). And those people are supposed to be unpaid and working 80 hours a week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one knows the answers to these questions.

However, Vivek has said he wants feds in the office 8-6 everyday and claims this can be done via EO. We shall see.

8-6 is illegal. Is Vivek a moron?

Many feds are FLSA exempt. Vivek can require whatever hours in-office that he wants.

[Anonymous]

At my agency, my group (procurement) has a pretty fair amount of folks in remote positions very far from the DC flagpole. Some were hired that way, while others navigated the remote approval process and left town asap. Kinda hard to ask someone in CA to move to DC in a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the plan:

1) Put DOGE ppl at each U.S. agency, then use "advanced technology" (AI?) to have them identify "thousands" of regulations to cut across government

2) Give Trump a list of "thousands" of regs to cut across the government, & have him approve their elimination

3) Identify "the minimum number of employees" necessary to maintain each agency's core function, which should be lower once 2 is complete. (NB: Musk oversaw ~80% reduction in X headcount)

4) Cut the federal employees - Musk/Ramaswamy call for for severance packages/ "incentives for early retirement," but we have no details

5) Cut programs where where Congress's specific spending authorization has lapsed (This category includes VA health care, NASA, antipoverty programs)

6) Approve a "temporary suspension of payments" amid "large-scale audits" (Details, specifics hugely unclear)

7) Assert POTUS authority to stop spending w/o Congressional approval by challenging 1974 budget law on impoundments

All seems to be *w/o Congress*

Fight whatever you need to in courts

So much of this list is in fact pretty illegal and ignorant of the way government functions. Just #1 for example, DOGE is not an actual federal agency but a third party and would not be able to be granted access to agency data without some type of MOA/legal agreement that works out privacy issues. Eliminating regulations, sure, fine but you can't just wave a wand and eliminate them you have to go through the federal register process (6-18 month period), etc etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my agency, my group (procurement) has a pretty fair amount of folks in remote positions very far from the DC flagpole. Some were hired that way, while others navigated the remote approval process and left town asap. Kinda hard to ask someone in CA to move to DC in a month.

Agree - but maybe they hope remote people will quit? We have quite a few remote workers in our office now and losing all of them would be a big hit. Its interesting though because those folks make less in salary than the DC workers but not sure that DOGE will care about that.

[Anonymous]

RTO will work in one if two ways, depending on your agency:

1. For well respected, relatively noncontroversial independent agencies that get their budget from fees, etc, not much will change. SEC, OCC, FDIC, etc

2. For everyone else (and cfpb), things will be very bad.

[Anonymous]

Let’s be honest, the federal government owns a lot of buildings. If they’re sitting empty because people aren’t coming in, why keep them? These buildings were likely purchased with the expectation that everyone would be working in person, 9 to 5. If that’s no longer the case, it makes sense to either have employees return to the office or sell off the buildings, shut them down, and reduce capacity to accommodate a remote workforce. After all, this is what companies do—why pay for empty or underutilized buildings if no one is using them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RTO will work in one if two ways, depending on your agency:

1. For well respected, relatively noncontroversial independent agencies that get their budget from fees, etc, not much will change. SEC, OCC, FDIC, etc

2. For everyone else (and cfpb), things will be very bad.

You think a bunch of billionaires narcissists think the SEC is a respected, noncontroversial agency? You crazy, girl.