Mass layoffs at the partially shuttered Department of Education sent shockwaves through Washington D. C., but they could foresee yet bigger things to come.
” Many of them don’t operate at all”, President Donald Trump said of the 1, 315 Education Department people who got red slip Tuesday night. ” We’re keeping the best people”.
That same design may keep for another agencies after the Department of Education’s labor was properly cut in half. Trump repeated some of his campaign speech by claiming,” They’re never showing up to work” and” no doing a good work”.
The Education Department closed for the remainder of Wednesday, with officers citing safety reasons, and will resume Thursday with a significantly reduced staff. People who will be let go did telecommuting before receiving 90 times of compensation spend plus additional charged day depending on their length of service.
While that information rankled Democrats and teachers organizations, it may show the opening salvo in a wider expanse of cuts to occur.
In late February, the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management , sent a memo , telling federal agencies to “take preparation to start large-scale reductions in power” and to send two” Agency Reorganization Plans”.
The first of those two dates may reach Thursday, with the other cast for April 14.
” Everyone is working together as one team”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner. ” This is a goal that every Cabinet Secretary across the board agrees with — , we have to decrease our workplace. We have to generate our government more successful”.
Those coming developments will possibly pile even more discussion on the Department of Government Performance and Elon Musk, who has already faced so much backlash that Trump saw fit to sponsor a Tesla automobile show at the White House to raise the automaker’s stock.
Trump’s approval rating remains just above water in the RealClearPolitics polling polling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” title=”average”>average, but Musk is getting lower marks. A recent CNN poll found that just 35 % of respondents approve of the world’s richest man, against 53 % who rate him negatively.
Yet Musk is plowing ahead and says he’ll continue his involvement with the government for at least another year.
” We’re trying to act broadly across all departments, so it’s not just one department at a time”, he told Fox Business host and former Trump administration official Larry Kudlow.
Asked if DOGE was working in every federal agency, Musk responded,” Pretty much, yea”. DOGE is one of the few government organizations with an expanding workforce, as Musk predicted its staff would grow from 100 to 200 people.
” Really, I just don’t want America to go bankrupt”, he said. Musk claims DOGE has saved more than$ 4 billion a day and predicted it could reach$ 1 trillion, though Democrats say his figures are vastly overstated and that he’s in danger of breaching numerous ethics laws.
Despite their protestations, Democrats and federal government unions have little recourse to fight the Trump administration except in court, as Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Federal judges have slowed down but not halted some of DOGE’s progress by preventing the U. S. Agency of International Development from shredding documents at DOGE’s request and ruling that it should be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
If the Department of Education layoffs indicate what’s to come, the GOP seems poised to keep cheerleading the cuts.
” Better education is closest to the kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards”, Education Secretary Linda McMahon , said , on Fox News’s Ingraham Angle. ” I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students when we can educate them with parental input as well”.
