Latest news with #Lipphardt
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
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. U.S. stock futures fall after a rough week on Wall Street, as Trump won't rule out recession One of Wall Street's biggest bulls now says a flash crash can't be ruled out These 13 growth stocks are expected to roar back from their declines so far this year Don't expect Trump or Powell to bail out investors this time as stock market nears 'danger zone' Why should I tip servers who earn $20 an hour? 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. My husband plans to leave his entire estate to his adult son, who steals his credit card to gamble online. What can I do? Thinking of buying the stock-market dip? Here's what you should know. Is the chip sector having a meltdown? By this measure, it's mostly just Nvidia. A $600K house for sale has an unsafe kitchen extension. Do I tell the selling agent? Rising egg prices represent the cracks in the facade of our economic wellbeing
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VFW condemns federal layoffs as ‘indiscriminately harming' veterans
The national leader of the Veterans of Foreign Wars criticized the ongoing mass layoffs of government employees, arguing that veterans — who account for nearly one-third of the federal workforce — are disproportionately affected. VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt, a Vietnam War veteran, condemned the layoffs in a statement Tuesday. He said veterans were being 'hit hard' by the firings, which have affected thousands of workers across various government agencies during President Donald Trump's first month in office. '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,' wrote Lipphardt, using a play on words about the new agency tasked with carrying out the cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 636,937 veterans were employed by the federal government as of September 2021. That number equates to about 30% of the federal workforce. Nearly 90% of those veterans received veterans' preference, a policy that gives job candidates a boost in the hiring process if they are disabled veterans or served on active duty during certain dates or military campaigns. Half of the veterans in the federal workforce as of September 2021 were designated as disabled, meaning they were discharged from the military with a service-connected disability. In a 2021 report about veterans in the federal workforce, the Office of Personnel Management lauded a recent increase in the rate of disabled veterans who were recruited into government jobs. 'This performance reflects consistency and robust application of veterans' recruiting efforts concerning disabled veterans,' the agency wrote. There is no official figure available for the employees fired since Trump launched an effort to shrink the federal workforce, and it's unclear how many of them were veterans. VA fires 1,400 more staffers in second round of workforce reductions Lipphardt said the VFW, which comprises 1.4 million members across 6,000 posts, has heard from some veterans who were affected. Their layoff emails, shared with VFW leadership, were 'disjointed,' 'inconsistent' and given 'little to no oversight or thought,' Lipphardt wrote. He argued that DOGE made decisions using algorithms and email distribution lists, rather than using more nuanced means to solve complex problems. 'I was wounded in combat during the Vietnam War. I am thankful that the medics who treated me chose not to take my whole arm for the sake of efficiency,' Lipphardt said. 'It took a trained eye, a skillful hand and human intuition to fix me up and get me back in the fight. In my experience, those operating with a scalpel have a better chance at saving limbs than those who operate with a chainsaw.' So far, many of the layoffs have been carried out by the wide-ranging firing of employees on probationary status, a designation that's generally given to workers who are on the job for less than a year and means they had yet to gain civil service protection. However, Lipphardt said some of the veterans who reached out to the VFW had worked for the government far longer and were 'caught by a formality in administrative statuses.' 'A lot of these aren't brand-new, off-the-street employees,' he wrote. 'These are employees who have been serving the American people for years, in uniform and in civil service. … These veterans are now being told their skills are no longer useful to the government.' Lipphardt conveyed concerns about the well-being of the veterans who had found purpose in government work and were abruptly fired, and he said the American people were suffering a loss of 'technical expertise, training and security clearances already bought and paid for by taxpayers.' As one of the country's largest veterans service organizations, the VFW lobbies Congress and testifies before lawmakers about issues that affect veterans, service members and their families. On March 4, Lipphardt will testify during a joint hearing of the House and Senate veterans' affairs committees — an annual event when multiple veterans organizations tell lawmakers about their priorities for the year. Lipphardt said he would use the opportunity to urge Congress and the Trump administration to 'put an end to the indiscriminate firing of veterans in the government workforce.' He called on VFW members to gather on Capitol Hill that day to make the same demand. 'It's time to apply pressure and stop the bleeding,' he wrote.
