Stick and Carrot is clearly working on foreign policy at the moment. Part of the problem is Congress abdication of their power of the purse, they authorized this bloat, they authorized all the deficit spending. NOW...as POTUS he can audit the government and then submit a balanced budget in July.
I was talking specifically in relation to the issues
@AWP brought up with the Fed "severance" reductions.
As an example, if 1 of our 3 logistics peeps resigns, can we backfill next FY? Nobody knows! We been told both that we'll lose the slot permanently and that we can rehire next FY. Those things can't both be true.
Stretch that issue across the entire DOD and this stick-carrot (for this paticular issue) may not cause the effects they want.
Agencies have no good communication of what the future looks like, so it's likely more people are being "exempted" than should be. Employees don't trust the
phishing emails about severance, not to mention the legal issues with us only being funded until March, so fewer are taking the deal.
If the goal is reduction, this has scared people into stagnation.
They should have given agencies 30 days (26FEB) to determine exemptions. At that time, they should have announced they would offer severances with a end date of 28MAR, two weeks after a new budget has passed.
This would have allowed time for proper communication, identification of exactly where cuts can be made, and gotten much more participation from feds on the fence.
ETA: The tarrif shit was good for bargaining, which I honestly did not expect, especially the deal with Mexico, as they've been trying to negotiate that for years and have been ignored.
More "gorilla" shit as
@amlove21 (?) Said a page or two back.
