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Why Many Americans Are On Board With Federal Worker Firings
WSJ via MSN ^ | March 21, 2025 | Scott Calvert

Posted on 03/21/2025 4:13:26 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?

Retired business owner Catherine Byrd is thrilled with President Trump’s push to shrink what she considers a bloated federal workforce. And she isn’t at all concerned for the tens of thousands of people losing jobs.

“I don’t feel bad for them a bit. I’ve worked in the private sector all my life,” and got laid off from jobs in the early days, the Georgia resident said. “You know what you do? You go out and find another job, and there are plenty of jobs to find.”

While there is outcry over thousands of federal workers losing their jobs to Department of Government Efficiency cuts and the chaos that has unleashed, a cohort of Americans aren’t sorry to see them go. Politics, personal experiences filing taxes or time in interminable post office and DMV lines lead many people to take a dim view of government workers at all levels.

Resentment also stems from a sense that federal workers enjoy perks, like guaranteed pensions, which are rare in the private sector.

Government employees overall have long experienced a lower rate of layoffs than their private-sector counterparts, especially during shocks such as the early days of Covid-19, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis show. Federal employees also tend to spend less time unemployed because they are less likely to lose their jobs than workers in the private sector, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.......

“Democrats have tended to favor a government that does more to solve problems. Republicans have been more likely to say the government does too much,” said Jocelyn Kiley, the Pew Research Center’s director of politics research. The country cut more than 400,000 federal jobs during the eight-year Clinton administration.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: doge; federaljobs; governmentlayoffs; layoffs; normbal
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“Democrats have tended to favor a government that does more to solve cause problems.

Fixed it.
1 posted on 03/21/2025 4:13:26 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

“Why”?! There are billions of reasons


2 posted on 03/21/2025 4:16:04 AM PDT by albie (U)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Covid.


3 posted on 03/21/2025 4:20:53 AM PDT by Jonty30 (I have invented blackened salmon salad by baking it in the oven for too long. )
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

The simple FACT that government employees pay NO taxes, pay nothing into social security, retirement funds, sick leave, etc., is slowly catching on.

Government pay voucers/W2 forms are illusory at best, bald-faced lies at worst.

In decades past, we’re told, the taxes from several thousand true wage-earners (ie - NON gov’t employees) would fund the pay and benefits for one gov’t employee (averaged from dog catcher to President); today, it takes the taxes from THREE true wage-earners to pay one gov’t employee’s wages and benefits.

Government employees can’t pay taxes, they are paid BY taxes, and taxation is not only theft, it is transgenerational slavery, forcing our children’s children’s children into debt slavery in perpetuity for government employees being paid today.

Disagree? Think about it. Even public education victims can understand the problem.


4 posted on 03/21/2025 4:21:13 AM PDT by normbal (normbal. somewhere in socialist occupied America ‘tween MD and TN)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

If you have ever been dissed at a DMV desk or a Post Office window, you may have a clue about the entitlement attitude of ‘some’ government employees.
If FedGov had spent a tiny fraction of their DEI allowance on intense customer service training, we the customer/bosses wouldn’t be quite so content that they’re going.


5 posted on 03/21/2025 4:22:56 AM PDT by Oscar in Batangas (An Honors Graduate from the Don Rickles School of Personal Verbal Intercourse)
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To: normbal

Exactly. All government employees are parasites. Some are more benign than others, but they are still parasites.


6 posted on 03/21/2025 4:25:05 AM PDT by ComputerGuy ( )
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To: ComputerGuy

All government is parasitic in nature.


7 posted on 03/21/2025 4:26:24 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?
ADDED:
Also, many Americans are ALL FOR elimninating H-1B.
8 posted on 03/21/2025 4:28:07 AM PDT by Bikkuri (I am proud to be a PureBlood.)
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To: normbal

“The simple FACT that government employees pay NO taxes, pay nothing into social security”

Federal workers do pay income tax and any hired since 1984 pay into social security


9 posted on 03/21/2025 4:28:47 AM PDT by JSM_Liberty
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To: normbal

[The simple FACT that government employees pay NO taxes, pay nothing into social security, retirement funds, sick leave, etc., is slowly catching on.]

Well, that’s actually not true (for a lot of it)

1) You DO pay taxes (I know because I have and recently)
2) You DO pay into Social Security (since the 1980s)
3) The old federal retirement system was broken in half decades ago - I was working for the Marines (Reserve) when the changeover happened - though I had started under the Federal Retirement system)
4) Sick leave (and vacation) are earned every two weeks of full-time work (1/2 day of each)


10 posted on 03/21/2025 4:32:05 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: JSM_Liberty
Federal workers do pay income tax and any hired since 1984 pay into social security

The military was added to social security in 1957.
11 posted on 03/21/2025 4:38:57 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage? (Drain the Swamp. Build the Wall.)
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To: ComputerGuy

Its an enormous gaggle of incompetence, arrogance and entitlement. How many times have you made calls to a government agency, waited on line for hours and then get disconnected more than once, and when you get a pick up you are made to feel inferior, your bothering them, they are home because you can hear the TV, the dog barking and the kids in the background and then you are told you have the wrong department and transferred to the automated system once again.
Time to get up off your fat a##es and find a real job, if you can without DEI


12 posted on 03/21/2025 4:42:12 AM PDT by ronnie raygun
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To: where's_the_Outrage?
Just as you'd expect, this is a hugely slanted article. They talk about how government workers are thrown in chaos due to being fired. Yes, I'm sure that's true. That's also true for people in the private sector where it happens WAY more often. Given we in the private sector went through the tech bubble bursting then the 07-2015 Great Recession (the worst economy in the US since the 1930s and yes it ran from 07-2015 in the job market) followed by Covid in which many in the private sector lost their jobs through no fault of their own, all while Government workers were protected, our sympathy for them is limited. ie "Welcome to the party pal."

They claim USAID did good and worthy stuff. I'm sure it did...with about 10% of its budget. Somehow they neglect to mention about 90% of the budget for USAID was a combo of foreign color revolution and Leftist cash machine.

They also neglected to mention the benefits of cutting the government workforce. It saves a lot of money and it frees up a lot of labor for the private sector. Remember how they've been screaming there wasn't enough labor for all the jobs? Well here's a bunch more. Now you won't "need" to import nearly as many foreigners! Win-Win-Win!

They also forgot to mention that Joe Biden massively expanded the government payroll.

They complain that the cuts were not all well thought out and done in the best way possible. For example they just fired those who were probationary employees without regard to which ones were good and which ones were lousy. I'm absolutely sure this is true. I'm sure the way the cuts have been made was not ideal. There is a reason for that though. The Democrats and the Deep State and the Corporate Media are fighting each and every cut just as hard as they possibly can. They will do everything possible to block any cut whatsoever. Therefore DOGE and the Trump administration are forced to enact brutal and wide ranging cuts and to do so quickly in order to get some desperately needed cutting done. Whatever harm is caused by cutting some workers and some areas that would be better not being cut, it is FAR outweighed by the benefits of bringing our massive budget deficit down and freeing up more labor for the private sector.

13 posted on 03/21/2025 4:44:59 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: SaveFerris

The money that is withheld from government workers and called a tax is NOT REVENUE. It is disguised as such, and marketed as such. Those ‘tax payments’ have no effect on the government’s bottom line. They are accounting exercises, that’s all.


14 posted on 03/21/2025 4:51:48 AM PDT by ComputerGuy ( )
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

I recall Rush looking deeper into the unemployment number early in the Obama years. The creation of government jobs far outpaced the civilian numbers. Also, the threshold for qualifying for Disability was lowered for people who were still unemployed after their extended benefits ran out. Rush also examined in depth the (I believe) the U3 or U6 numbers. Now those who were hired on under Bathhouse Barry are getting close to retirement eligibility after holding a made up job doing almost nothing.


15 posted on 03/21/2025 4:52:01 AM PDT by EandH Dad (sleeping giants wake up REALLY grumpy)
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To: Oscar in Batangas

Post Office window,
_________________

Come to think about it, Post office is the only part of Government which produces something?! (Provides useful service). Most of the government is invisible and useless.


16 posted on 03/21/2025 4:55:49 AM PDT by AZJeep (sane )
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Why?

Because taxpayers are NOT cash cows.


17 posted on 03/21/2025 4:58:03 AM PDT by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)
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To: AZJeep

You know what the USPS produces in my neck of the woods?

Other people’s mail.


18 posted on 03/21/2025 4:58:45 AM PDT by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)
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To: ComputerGuy

[NOT REVENUE]

True, but Federal workers are not getting the money for free since they DO pay (individually) at the Federal rate; just like any other taxpayer.

But you’re not wrong - it’s federal money back to the feds


19 posted on 03/21/2025 5:00:01 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

The WorldStreetJackasses are confused.....


20 posted on 03/21/2025 5:00:36 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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