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20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

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Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#361

Post by bongodongobob »

tdeck wrote: post #283
bilekas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Critics argue the offer is illegal, there's no real guarantee people will get paid out, and it's something Congress would need to authorize. Give then history of this particular admistration & business', I personally wouldn't be too confident in actually getting paid up to Sept.

One key difference is that those businesses had to pay with Trump's money. While these employees will be paid with our money.

Elon and his little pawns are in the Treasury dept computers right now.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#362

Post by maronato »

dehugger wrote: post #310
tencentshill wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good is a lawsuit if He decides to ignore it and not pay? One side of that battle is ultimately backed up by the military.

Military members are government employees. I imagine they would be extremely circumspect of being deployed against other government employees who were cheated by a bad-faith deal.

“I’m just following orders” has been a successful moral defense for centuries. I wouldn’t bet on it losing its effectiveness this time.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#363

Post by insane_dreamer »

csa wrote: post #50
Shank wrote: post #15

I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best. Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14, 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations. It would be an i…

> this was never authorized by congress, Correct. > so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best Incorrect. The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are paid. Note that there will probably b…

> The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot).

Since the budget is only funded through March, the budget can be modified in March in order to extend the funding for it (all those "government shutdown avoidance negotiations"). At which point it won't matter whether it was budgeted or not.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#364

Post by mandevil »

ryandrake wrote: post #169
Jtsummers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By law they have to be paid for the furloughed time in the case of a shutdown, since 2019. Previously, they were typically paid for that time whether they had to work through the shutdown or not but it was not guaranteed. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12251

Who's going to enforce that law?

The employees, suing in Federal court, since they have a clear and obvious loss to point to, they will have standing. Judges can either obey the law or not. If they don't obey the law, then we are much further along on the authoritarian spectrum then everyone thinks, but so far Musk has lost a lot of court cases and has several emergency injunctions against him doing anything.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#365

Post by asperous »

flustercan wrote: post #234
bmitc wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal employee unions have incredible power, often to the detriment of the government.

That power comes from the idea that the federal employees can shut down government operations if they stop working. This administration (supposedly) wants dearly to shut down government operations, so the union doesn't have any power.

Federal employees are not allowed to strike

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#366

Post by insane_dreamer »

Retric wrote: post #112
aeternum wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the gov will not be funded and you don't believe the gov will honor it's severance agreement why would you believe the employment contract will be honored after March 14?

There’s many examples of government shutdowns where workers received back pay even when they didn’t work those hours. So future administrations are likely to retroactively approve payments if it becomes a political issue. Honestly taking the buyout without an act of congress backing it is likely the more risky here unless you where already planning to leave which is likely why most people took it.

That was a different situation because those people continue to be employees. The gov gave them back pay during shutdown because it wants them to continue to work after the shutdown (so services keep being rendered).

In this case, Trump/Musk don't want these workers back, so there's no political incentive or pressure to pay them. They can just not do so if it's "not funded by Congress" (usually there's fine print about this, at least there is in gov contracts, which are similar).

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#367

Post by alaxhn »

mcmcmc wrote: post #345
sitkack wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is burn down the federal government, it doesn't really matter to them what happens. Expensive lawsuits and settlements, sign me up! It isn't their money.

Burn down and loot

Can you please be more clear on what is being looted in your view? I can see how a lot of money can be made from having the government fund a project that you benefit from. For example DOGE uncovered that Senator Lindsey Graham sits on the board of International Republican Institute which was funded by USAID. I don't see how someone benefits themselves financially by cutting government spending since the revenue stream that they could direct into their pocket has now dried up.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#368

Post by selfhoster »

ryandrake wrote: post #161
bigmattystyles wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds illegal

Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four years is going to be "That sounds illegal" but it's only illegal if the law gets enforced. I encourage anyone responding with "That sounds illegal" or "They can't do that" to also include in their response, "...and it will be enforced by [xxxx]." and try to come up with a realistic xxxx. EDIT: I'm not making any judgment about whether this particular thing is le…

> Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four years is going to be "That sounds illegal"

And the last four years, for which Biden pardoned his son, certainly nothing illegal in his doings I'm sure.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#369

Post by numpad0 »

toast0 wrote: post #293
numpad0 wrote: post #189

Not an American, but the reported resignation process of just sending arbitrary content email with subject "resign" to "hr@opm.gov" feels like the real aim is to collect emails and response time data to establish cluster system health metric to determine which nodes can be murdered safely. It's almost strange to me that this aspect, and stupidity of injecting non-compiling code to human mainframes collective that run…

> Not an American, but the reported resignation process of just sending arbitrary content email with subject "resign" to "hr@opm.gov" feels like the real aim is to collect emails and response time data to establish cluster system health metric to determine which nodes can be murdered safely. Is that all it takes? Think they check DKIM and SPF?

It's all completely crazy. There are rumors that some of offer emails didn't pass DMARC in the first place. Reportedly it started with someone from xAI showing up at an OPM physical location with a computer to plug into the network. People calling it coup or analogizing the ops team to Chinese Red Guards aren't exaggerating.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#370

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

paulddraper wrote: post #351
Shank wrote: post #15

I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best. Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14, 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations. It would be an i…

Severance packages don't require Congressional approval.

Funding can only come from congress. At this scale it will require new funding.
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