The real reason they are going after Civil Servants. The reason they ALWAYS go after Civil Servants

[maxrandb]

It's NOT because of cost, or savings, or waste, or fraud. It's NOT to create chaos and uncertainty, that's just a side benefit. It's not even to get rid of oversight and regulations so they can poison, rape and pillage our country's resources and people. Again, that is just a side benefit.

I think the reason they target Civil Servants is much more cynical.

They go after Civil Servants, because Civil Servants are the last significant US labor force that represent how labor was valued before Saint Ronnie Ray-Gun sold America's Middle Class down the river.

The Civil Service is the last significant labor force in America that exists, where you are fairly compensated, enjoy rigorous safety and employment protections and enjoy decent pensions and benefits. They are the last segment of the American labor force that hasn't adopted the billionaire and corporate goal to turn us all into; "you ought to be just fucking thankful you have a job", lemmings.

Civil Servants are somewhat protected from the cruel, greedy whims of tyrants. It's one of the last American labor force, where your boss can't come in one day and fire you because they don't like your hair, skin color, looks, or simply because they had a fight with their spouse over having no half-and-half for their morning coffee.

It's also one of the last places where your boss, whether an SES, or a GS15, doesn't make 300, 400, or 1,000 times what a GS7 makes.

The oligarchs simply can't allow this example of what American labor can be to exist.

Break this workforce and we all become "just be fucking thankful you have a job" quislings.

Finally, civil service is an easy target.

I think it was LBJ who once said; "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best black man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

The Retrumplicans have spent, at least the better part of 40 years applying that to civil servants.

It's possibly the greatest scam in history. They have convinced a large segment of Americans making $50K to $52K a year, with shitty retirement options and benefits, that their true enemy is their fellow Americans making $53K to $55K a year, with decent pensions and benefits.

If the American labor force ever starts asking; "why do my wages, pension and benefits suck so much"?, instead of hating people that enjoy halfway decent wages, pensions and benefits, it's game over for the trickle-down bullshit.

That's why they must destroy the civil service.

[Historic NY]

1. He fired the air traffic controllers...

and now Republicans are like air traffic is f--ked up. The'd really be proving something if they canned the janitors and kitchen staff. but they couldn't survive.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

35. Decent people--mostly Democrats--when facing difficulties, want to make sure others don't

face those same difficulties. Sociopaths--most Republicans--want others to suffer those same difficulties and worse, no matter how little those others may be able to deal with or recover from them.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not what Christians are supposed to do. Yet most of the sociopaths claim to be Christians. I'd love to leave religion out of it, but religion is a big part of the current problem.

[Jit423]

2. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

Two words not in the GOP lexicon: Service and Sacrifice

But Game and Grift are in.

[Hugin]

3. Yep, no indications of alternative systems to the status quo can be allowed to exist.

There can only be one system. Theirs!

Where those at the top hold all of the cards.

There’s plenty of precedent in the private sector where the capture and kill of alternative business plans has been demonstrated. Hewlett-Packard, Costco, eBay, Long John Silvers, General Electric… Even, ironically, Walmart. They can’t be allowed to exist.

So, yeah, now this unsustainable business plan is being imposed on the federal government. Slowly at first, Amtrak, USPS, and now wholesale.

[DBoon]

30. May also be behind Trump's push to annex Canada

A more just society with some sort of social safety net on our northern border cannot be allowed to exist.

Just like Russia cannot allow a democratic Ukraine to exist, or the PRC cannot allow a democratic Taiwan to exist.

[Hugin]

31. Excellent point.

Very good!

[Beatlelvr]

4. Speaking as a retired state employee

I concur!

[A_Steel_Magnolia]

5. They can also replace these people with "loyal" civil servants who will do their bidding.

[mwooldri]

6. And that's probably what they're after.

The whole point of the civil service is to carry out the administration of government. Not necessarily to believe in the political policies.

Sir Humphrey explains why pretty succinctly in Yes, Minister.

?si=HA1z5ZbemF5xFQ04

[patphil]

11. Excellent. Thank you.

[dchill]

17. OH! 😮

It's perfect. Sadly.

[TheRickles]

7. Excellent analysis! Thanks.

[bronxiteforever]

8. Kick

[BattleRow]

9. Excellent post.Thank you for this

I rankle each time some nitwit figuratively genuflects at the neoCON altar of Saint (?)Ronnie Raygun.

[Wifes husband]

10. It is simpler than that

The goal is to contract government activities. That is it. There is a lot of money to be made that way.
Contracting out government services has always increased costs or reduced quality, or both.
That is the goal.
Reducing government staff will cause complaints, which will lead to contracting out of government duties.

[Freddie]

26. There is NOTHING the Repugs love more

Than feeding at the taxpayer trough. See also private prisons, charter schools, etc.

[Jill Hanson]

12. Agree!

This is the best DU post I’ve read in a very long time. Thank you for sharing! This is so spot on.

[KitFox]

13. Absolutely!!! Thank you for this excellent post!!!

I am a retired public school teacher. This brought me back to the ever occurring newspaper letters to the editor, vilifying teachers, in one form or another, as “lazy with a treasure trove of benefits”. The complaints about free breakfasts and lunches was ever present. It’s like the old adage: The fat cats will take all the cookies and trick the rest of the people into fighting over the crumbs. Or this one: A CEO, a laborer, and an immigrant are sitting at a table with a plate of 20 cookies. The CEO grabs 19 and then shouts at the laborer, “Watch out! He’s trying to steal your cookie!” Thanks again for your excellent post!

[Wifes husband]

15. Benefits

Those "free benefits" are a sore subject with me. My own father used to complain about the free health care I got. I had to explain over and over again that my health insurance was not free. I paid my share of the premiums, as did my employer (the government) as part of my compensation package.

He never could get get that straight.

[KitFox]

16. Exactly! One time, in trying to explain this to

a cousin, I showed him my paycheck attachment with the breakdown showing what was deducted for health insurance and PERS and I still couldn’t convince him.

[maxrandb]

21. I spent 30 years in the Navy

You should try to explain to them that the military pays Federal, State and Local taxes, and for Social Security and Medicare.

[maxrandb]

20. The attitude of MAGA working class voters seems to be

"I live in a 'Right' to Work state, in an "at will" job. I can be fired without a seconds notice, for ANY reason, why can't my neighbor??!!"

Their idea of "fair labor standards" is we all get screwed the same.

Of course, if they lose their job, it's because migrants stole it. If you lose your job, it's because you're a lazy, good for nothing scoundrel.

The thing I miss the least about my civil service job, is all the MAGAts sitting around the smoke break area, crowing that they were the only ones that worked hard.

[William Seger]

14. I'd say that's all very true, but there's an additional sinister element being added now

... i.e., that such propagandizing is being used in the service of destroying the government to facilitate replacing our democracy with a fascist dictatorship. Ethnic cleansing in Gaza to facilitate building an "American Riviera" shows there's really no limit on the creative opportunities that insatiably greedy oligarchs will find now that they control the U.S. government.

[Hotler]

18. (Civil service & unions) It's the empowerment of the worker that drives them crazy.

That may be the real reason they don't like universal healthcare. Universal healthcare would allow employees to quit shitty jobs and managers without fear of losing care.

[drmeow]

19. It is one of the reasons

they hate the USPS.

[moondust]

22. Sadistic predators

want control of EVERYTHING that has profit potential if privatized, dammit! And EVERYTHING else, dammit! NO MORE BIG GUBMENT COMYUNIZUM!!! has been the Predator's Song for a century but certainly intensified since RayGun when markets started to become saturated and predatory opportunities started to dwindle.

[wiggs]

23. This morning TSF said that USAID was filled with fraud and corruption. Not one questioner asked for an example. nt

[meadowlander]

24. Also they know civil servants can't really fight back without compromising their political neutrality.

Part of being a career professional civil servant is being able to protect your ability to work with any new government by not making partisan political statements. As a result, most career public servants avoid talking about politics and about their jobs by force of habit. They also spend most of their careers having to smile and be polite to people who are being abusive to them.

It becomes an ingrained force of habit that they don't punch back against people. If they did it would be used as proof that they are partisan and would be the basis for firing them for cause.

The truth is that public servants are the *administrative* state. They exist to administer the laws and policies that elected officials set. 99.999% of the time that nonsense rule that's pissing you off or that wasted money or fraudulent spending wasn't put in place by the public servant. But they take 100% of the flak for it because people don't understand and don't want to take the time to learn what it is that the people they vote into office get up to.

Easier to blame some shadowy theoretical back office nobody than the person you see smiling on TV and asking for your vote.

[calimary]

40. Really good points here, meadowlander.

They’re basically forced to “grin ‘n’ bear it”.

Hey, whatever job benefits they get seem like a pittance compared with what they have to put up with.

What REALLY bothers me are the reports about people being fired after putting in decades of service. Just taken for granted and then shoved overboard. They do NOT deserve this!

Heck, NOBODY deserves disrespect like this! (Uh - well - except for trump and his thoughtless, greedy, scheming pals.)

[maxrandb]

42. It's more than that, seriously

Civil Service is one of the only major remaining workforce that is "somewhat" treated with dignity and respect. The "owners" of this country want to destroy any idea that workers be treated with decency and respect.

It's bad enough that these ordinary, average, hard-working, middle class Americans have to fight the billionaires, corporations and media that fund and enable the Retrumplican Party; but it's fucking criminal that they also have to fight 10's of millions of their fellow middle class Americans.

If just a few of these MAGAts would ask; "hey, why does my pay, pension, benefits and workplace protection SUCK so much?" instead of saying; "hey, fuck my neighbor Bill, because his pay, pension, benefits and workplace protection SUCK LESS than mine" they might actually see how hard the Retrumplican trickle-down bullshit has been fucking them up the ass for 50 fucking years now!

[Evolve Dammit]

25. Grover Norquist's dream as articulated years after Raygun set it in motion. "Drown it in the bathtub." I hate Nazis.

[valleyrogue]

27. And they will NOT succeed.

What these "libertarian" crackpots--hell, that is redundant--are trying to do is unworkable and unsustainable.

These criminals better get used to a massive pushback even from the MAGAs.

[valleyrogue]

28. That was what the WEP/GPO was about.

It wasn't about "fairness." It was all about creating animosity between those who are private industry workers with no benefits vs. public employees. So, to make it "fair," they STOLE from public employees from states that didn't pay into SS.

In the end, it didn't succeed. These assholes trying to take down the federal government will not succeed, either.

[FakeNoose]

29. Before the Civil Service system was created, government jobs used to be handed out

... as rewards or favors to the winning candidates' buddies. They didn't get "paid' to help on the campaign, they got a cushy job as their reward when the candidate got into office. It was called patronage and it was terrible. Those same jobs were given out to the next winner's friends in 4 years, so the jobs were only good while the candidate kept winning re-election. The entire system stank because there were no training programs or job qualifications, just a free paycheck for what amounted to no-show jobs.

Now the Repukes want to destroy the Civil Service system and go back to the old-style patronage jobs.

[Wild blueberry]

32. Well said!

Thank you.

[malaise]

33. Great OP

Rec

[Betty Boom]

34. Accurate. One small correction

There is no GS-16. The GS pay scale only goes to 15, which is what I was.

I was just discussing this today with a friend who did not work in government, trying to explain why federal employees are so bewildered at what is happening right now. It’s because the culture of the federal workplace is about Rules, regulations, and procedures. And all of that has been completely thrown out the window by these ridiculous sweeping moves that don’t follow any rules, and have no plan for implementation or how to proceed.

The illegality aside., who exactly is going to process the paperwork for all these buyouts, when of your HR staff has been put on admin leave or fired because they telework from two states away?
(Hint: Human resources work is a good example of the kind of work that lends itself to telework — As are the vast numbers of analyst jobs in the federal government.)

[Skittles]

37. excellent points, Betty Boom

even more reason to take the advice to not act on these ridiculous emails - how stupid would you have to be to believe ANYTHING these fascist goons offer

[hueymahl]

36. My only quibble

Is that we have never valued labor. La or has had to fight for everything it has. Other than that, great essay!

[Figarosmom]

38. I agree

But they'll be gutting labor laws and busting unions soon enough.

They also firmly believe there should be no middle class. Just rich and poor.

[cstanleytech]

39. The other thing is they also make it harder for the remaining ones to do their job effectively.

That's why they are trying to get rid of the FBI or at least weaken it enough so they can't do the job of investigating criminal activity.

[Dem4life1234]

41. Yep, alot of low lives are jealous of government workers

Because they have historically gotten the best job security and pensions.

It's pure jealousy.