Friday, January 31, 2025

Trump's Memo To Federal Employees Is A Scam, A Purge, And It's Illegal

Here is the Trump/Musk memo to federal employees:


 


And here is Robert Reich's advice to those employee's:

I’m addressing this post to America’s 2.3 million federal employees.


My message: Don’t accept Elon’s offer. 


Yesterday, Musk — via people he’s planted in the Office of Personnel Management — sent an email to all 2.3 million of you, offering to pay you for eight months of work, through September 30, if you’ll resign from the government before February 6. Otherwise, you risk being furloughed (that is, not paid) or fired. 


You know what this is about. Not slimming the federal workforce, but substituting Trump loyalists for people like you, who are working for the American public. 


Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said it out loud Tuesday on CNN: "The 2 million employees in the federal government are overwhelmingly left of center.” And now that Trump is elected, "it is essential for him to get control of government.” 


But the fact is, neither Musk nor even Trump has legal authority to offer you eight months of pay if you’ll resign by February 6.

 

Your salaries are funded by the federal agencies and departments you work for, not by the Office of Personnel Management, not by Musk, and not by Trump.

 

None of them is authorized by Congress to move money from one agency or department to another without Congress’s approval. I know. I used to be a cabinet secretary. 


Besides, the funding for your agency or department is guaranteed only through March 14, when the government is expected to shut down unless the debt ceiling is lifted. If not, any commitment for additional pay is worthless.


In fact, Musk (and Trump) are violating the law by agreeing to spend money that the administration doesn’t have. Congress could declare the entire offer illegal — which it is. Then where would you be?


May I also add that you shouldn’t trust Trump or Musk. 


Trump has a long history of stiffing workers and contractors. 


So, for that matter, does Musk. During the pandemic, Musk gave Tesla employees permission to remain at home if they didn’t feel comfortable reporting to the factory. Then he sent them termination notices alleging “failure to return to work.”


When he bought Twitter in 2022, Musk denied he wanted to lay off 75 percent of its staff (“No way I’m laying off 75 percent of them”) but then fired 80 percent of them (maybe that’s what he meant when he pledged not to fire 75 percent?) 


In short, it’s a bum offer. Reject it.

 

By the way, thank you for your service. 


And Paul Krugman's advice to federal employees:

The latest and biggest move has come in the form of an email from the Office of Personnel Management, which appears to have effectively been taken over by associates of Elon Musk, effectively offering a buyout to federal employees who resign in the next few days. On paper, it isn’t exactly a buyout; those who accept the offer will be placed on administrative leave but supposedly continue to be paid until September. But being told that you can stop working while receiving eight months’ salary is just a buyout by another name.


There are five things you should know about this plan:


1. It’s illegal.


2. It’s almost surely a scam: workers who take the offer probably won’t see the money they’ve been promised.


3. To the extent that workers actually take up the offer, they’ll be the workers we can least afford to lose.


4. The move will cost, not save money.


5. What this really amounts to is a purge, replacing professional civil servants with political loyalists.


It’s pretty clear that the principal motivation is political. This is a purge, an attempt to push out government workers who believe that their job is to serve the public and replace them with Trump loyalists.

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