Free Republic

President Trump on Thursday blocked an automatic pay raise for 1.5 million federal workers, and asked Congress to pass legislation with no increase next year for employees covered by the General Schedule pay system. “Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” Trump wrote in a Thursday letter to congressional leaders, a formality that blocks an automatic 2.1 percent raise from taking effect in January under the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act. "I have determined that for 2019, both across‑the‑board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at zero," Trump wrote.

A federal judge dealt a blow Saturday to President Donald Trump’s efforts to “promote more efficient” government, ruling that key provisions of three recent executive orders “undermine federal employees’ right to bargain collectively” under federal law. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said Trump had “exceeded his authority” in issuing the orders.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Saturday rejected key elements of President Donald Trump’s May executive orders that would make it easier to fire federal employees and reduce their ability to bargain collectively. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said in a court order that Trump’s orders, which also would reduce the amount of time low-performing employees had to improve their performance before being fired, “undermine federal employees’ right to bargain collectively.” Trump signed three executive orders in May that administration officials said would give government agencies greater ability to...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is moving two agencies and roughly 700 federal employees out of Washington, D.C., to save money and improve the department’s service to taxpayers. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Thursday that the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture will be fully moved out of the nation’s capital by 2020, according to the USDA.

CNSNews.com) - The federal government cut 3,000 jobs in May and federal employment has now dropped by 24,000 since President Donald Trump took office, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even as federal government jobs were declining, overall employment was increasing—as was employment in state and local government. In April, there were 2,789,000 people employed in civilian federal government jobs. In May, that declined to 2,786,000, a drop of 3,000

Pencil pushers. Desk jockeys. There are a lot of names for the bureaucrats who fill the offices of the federal government. President Trump says they, and their work, need to be examined more closely. He fired a major shot in the effort to enact civil service reform during his State of the Union address, creating what one leading workforce expert hopes will be an effort to root out the “intransigence and incompetence” from the federal workforce. In his speech, Trump hailed the passage of legislation in 2017 that gave more authority for Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin to fire...

t’s not just the VA where we’re having trouble cutting out the deadwood, however. This report from the Washington Post has at least one real eye opener in it. The head of the Treasury has been made aware of problems at the Patent and Trademark Office. Over there, a number of workers were found to be falsifying their time reporting, billing the government for hundreds of thousands of dollars for time not worked. In some of the most severe cases, workers put in two hours of time, then had the audacity to charge the government for a full day plus...

Government employees are growing increasingly willing to criticize or defy the White House and President Trump’s top appointees. A handful of current and former career staffers in the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have openly shredded their superiors within the last several weeks, continuing a trend that has developed throughout the government over the course of Trump’s tenure in the Oval Office. The growing opposition in the executive branch comes as the White House’s legislative agenda has stalled in Congress and Trump turns to his Cabinet agencies to change course in several policy areas. It also is emanating...

Deeds, not words, are the best defense. Donald Trump campaigned on the promise to “drain the swamp” ––the D.C. establishment made up of most Congressmen from both parties, employees of executive agencies and bureaus, the political appointees who head up those agencies, and the hordes of lobbyists, fundraisers, Congressional staffers, “consultants,” “journalists,” and pundits. These are the “Beltway insiders” or the “political establishment” whose natural habitat is the swamp. These are the alligators Trump needs to get rid of. Of course, many of these D.C. denizens of the establishment are permanent dwellers in the swamp, beyond the reach of the...

The White House proposed a $5.7 billion budget for EPA in fiscal 2018. That’s a 31 percent cut from 2017 numbers. A 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would force it to eliminate at least 50 individual programs and nearly 4,000 full-time equivalents in 2018, according to internal EPA documents that describe funding levels and policy decisions that support the President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget request.

As hard as it will be to pass health insurance reform, tax reform, and infrastructure legislation, President Trump's toughest challenge will come in trying to cut the numbers of federal workers. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but budget and government experts are calling the planned reductions in the federal workforce a "historic contraction" not seen since the drawdown after World War II.  Cabinet secretaries will have some leeway in how they reduce their departments' workforces.  Some may rely on the normal attrition that occurs in any workforce with retirements and vacancies created by promotions being responsible for...

Why doesn't Trump write a Whistleblower Protection Order when people come forward with information to the Department of Justice or a White House Counsel they will protect their jobs as long as they aren't legally culpable in the events that occurred? This information would be all information without regard for whether the person suspects it is legal or illegal, just come forward and tell your story.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is cleaning house at the State Department, according to a report. Staffers in the offices of deputy secretary of state for management and resources as well as counselor were shown the door Thursday, according to CBS News. Many of those let go were on the building’s seventh floor — top-floor bigs — a symbolically important sign to the rest of the diplomatic corps that their new boss has different priorities than the last one. This week’s round of firings marks the second time State Department personnel have been cleared out since President Trump took office...

The Washington region’s prospects aren’t all bad under the Trump administration. A top local economist joked at a recent business conference that demonstrators flocking to rallies in the District will drop bundles of cash, spurring growth from “protest tourism.” But the area is bracing for shock at the hands of a reinvent-the-rules president who routinely insults the city and a Republican-led Congress that for years has sought to shrink the federal government that is the area’s principal employer. Officials and analysts expect sharp cuts in federal nondefense spending, which would strain local budgets nationwide and pose a particular threat to...

Federal employees are working closely with former Obama administration officials to thwart future President Donald Trump’s policies and initiatives, according to a report published by The Washington Post. Federal workers regularly consult with Obama-era political appointees about ways they can push back and potentially stymie Trump’s initiatives, according to the report. Dozens of federal workers attended a support group last weekend for civil servants seeking a place to hash out their issues with the Trump administration. Nearly 200 or more federal employees, many of whom worked for the Obama administration, have signed up for workshops meant to train people in...

According to a report by the Washington Post, some 180 federal employees have registered for training on the February 4-5 weekend in both the rights of workers and in civil disobedience. The report said that dozens of federal bureaucrats attended a support group that foments opposition to the Trump administration, less than two weeks after the inauguration President Donald Trump.    While the Post report pointed out the obvious public protests that have emerged since the beginning of the Trump administration, “there’s another level of resistance to the new president that is less visible and potentially more troublesome,” it said....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A day after President-elect Donald Trump encouraged supporters to "Buy L.L. Bean," a U.S. ethics watchdog on Friday warned federal employees they must not endorse products or companies. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) said on its official Twitter account: "All executive branch employees must refrain from misuse of position, including endorsements." No mention of Trump was made in the tweet, and many rules for federal employees do not apply to the president. The ethics office has tweeted other reminders to employees this week, including one that federal gift restrictions remain in place during the upcoming...

Federal workers in Maryland and across the nation are bracing for reductions in head counts, civil service protections and even salaries when President-elect Donald Trump and Congress turn their attention to government spending later this year. Trump, who ran on a promise to "drain the swamp," has identified hiring freezes at most federal agencies as a top priority for his early days in office. Republican lawmakers, many of whom have long advocated for reducing Washington's footprint, are looking to cut benefits and make it easier to fire poor performers. The threats and preliminary steps taken by Congress have created anxiety...

As a longtime resident of government employee country I say this plan couldn’t come soon enough. The bureaucracy in DC is massive, expensive, and entitled. Given the degree to which technology could easily reduce the bloat in the city and beyond wins should come early and relatively easily. Wins for taxpayers anyway. Washington, the “imperial city” won’t like it and will scream bloody murder. On the other hand recent reports said that up to 35% of federal workers said they’d consider quitting their jobs if Trump became president. I say we call em’ on it.

Federal employees face a long overdue reckoning Give this some thought: We are a nation based on a system of federalism, which means that largely sovereign states are united under a limited federal government that performs only certain essential functions - those enumerated in the Constitution - and leaves all functions not so enumerated to the states by law. That is the idea. So how did we get to the point where a federal government supposedly so limited has 2.1 million employees? And how did that group of federal employees become such a privileged class that they're almost impossible to...