I’m a fed worker — there is a lot of dead wood in the government because you can’t fire people. Too many “protected classes” (LGBT, race) as well as some former military folks who claim disability but have never seen a battlefield. (I’m not talking about the ones who are truly disabled). I worked with this one woman who was “disabled” — she never showed up for work and then would claim PTSD if confronted — BUT SHE NEVER WAS IN COMBAT OR IN AN AOR! She was stationed CONUS.
It is frustrating to the folks that really care and do a good job to support our soldiers — you get the same pay and benefits as most of the slugs. Then you get the added benefit of being “punished by performance”, as you get more work piled on you because you care and the slug won’t do it. So, hopefully Trump’s administration will make it easier to get rid of the deadwood — it will do a lot for morale of the good workers and save money for the taxpayers!
Even if all Trump does is replace the Judges on the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) with more conservative individuals, that would help a lot. Back when I was an ER Specialist, I probably fired at least one poor employee per week in a workforce of about 800 (VA hospital). Some we pretty much knew we would fire when we hired them: due to veterans preference rules we had no choice but to hire (i.e., person was pretty obviously alcoholic but was a “disabled veteran” so we couldn’t hire anyone else unless we hired them). But it’s my understanding that the MSPB judges are now way more employee friendly.