Danger for Republicans as ‘DOGE' bites veterans
The number of United States veterans with jobs plunged by 175,000 last month, and the share of veterans who are either unemployed or who have dropped out of the workforce completely jumped by a full percentage point.
So reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its latest monthly payroll release. It says 8,069,000 U.S. veterans held jobs in February, or 46.4% of the veteran population — down from 8,244,000, or 47.4%, in January.
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The news is sure to raise new concerns even among Republicans in Washington about the job-cutting mayhem unleashed in the last two months by Elon Musk and his 'Department of Government Efficiency' team.
The data come just after a report from headhunters Challenger, Gray and Christmas that said 'DOGE' was helping drive job cuts to a postpandemic high, and as the Trump administration courts controversy among veterans by announcing deep staffing cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Al Lipphardt, the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, has already called for the Trump administration and layoffs chief Musk to halt their 'indiscriminate firing of veterans.'
'It has become clearer that the veteran community has been hit hard as probationary federal jobs are being axed across the country,' Lipphardt said, noting that 30% of federal employees are veterans.
'Since the federal government is the single largest employer of veterans in the nation, it's veterans who are being indiscriminately harmed in this bull-'DOGE'-ing of the federal workforce' he added.
(As far as we are aware, Lipphardt's wordplay, combining 'bulldozing' with 'DOGE,' may be original.)
Veterans voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by a 2-to-1 margin last November, with two-thirds of veterans backing Trump. But how far this issue will influence the president directly is another matter.
Trump lawyer Alina Habba provoked controversy this week by suggesting many veterans who had been laid off may have been unfit for work.
Donald Trump, who as a young man avoided serving in Vietnam because of bone spurs, later famously minimized the dangers faced by those who actually went and fought — likening their risks in the jungles of Southeast Asia to the risk he faced of getting sexually transmitted diseases from his promiscuous sex life in New York.
'Dating is like being in Vietnam,' he told radio shock jock Howard Stern in 1997. 'You're the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam. … It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.'
The U.S. government estimates 58,220 U.S. servicemen and women died in the Vietnam War.
Such an attitude may explain why VFW's Lipphardt specifically mentioned Congress as well as the administration in his appeal to halt the 'bull-dogeing' of the federal workforce. President Trump will not face another election, whereas Republicans in Congress will face midterm elections next year.
The federal government employs over 2.4 million people, excluding U.S. Postal Service and active military personnel. Given the mayhem and confusion wrought by Trump and Musk since the inauguration, American businesses may wonder how many of them are going to go ahead and buy a new car, remodel their kitchen or book a major vacation until they get a lot more clarity.
Musk likes to boast that he laid off most of the staff at Twitter after taking over in 2022, but the company only employed about 7,500. Total cuts were about 6,000.
Meanwhile, those working for the federal government and living in fear of the Musk 'bulldoger' can draw some modest comfort from one point: Musk's scope for job cuts is far less than he thinks or than he is pretending to MAGA Nation. Contrary to conventional wisdom, federal employment is actually very low by historical standards when compared to the overall size of the U.S. and its economy.
At the moment, excluding the post office and active military personnel, the U.S. federal government employs about 1.8 people for every 100 Americans who work in the private sector.
In January 2021, when President Trump left office the first time, the ratio was slightly higher, at 1.9 federal employees for every 100 private-sector workers.
When conservative icon Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, the ratio was nearly twice as high as it is today: Back then, Uncle Sam employed 2.3 million people, or 2.6 for every 100 private-sector workers.
And when Dwight Eisenhower left in January 1961, years before Lyndon Johnson ever launched his liberal 'Great Society' programs, the figure was higher still: 4.0 federal employees for every 100 private-sector workers, or more than twice the ratio of today.
(No wonder some on the right called Eisenhower a communist.)
As federal employment in relative terms is already very low, it is probably no surprise the DOGE boys have had to reverse some of their layoffs almost immediately.
Expect more of this. DOGE is now firing staff from the Social Security Administration, even though staffing levels there recently hit a 25-year low and the operation was in the midst of an emergency rebuilding with support from both parties.
Just wait until more Republican legislators talk to local members of the VFW.
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