Latest news with #PartnershipforPublicService
Observer
7 days ago
- Politics
- Observer
Musk's legacy is disease, starvation and death
There is an Elon Musk post on X, his social media platform, that should define his legacy. 'We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,' he wrote on February 3. He could have 'gone to some great parties. Did that instead.' Musk's absurd scheme to save the government a trillion dollars by slashing 'waste, fraud and abuse' has been a failure. DOGE claims it's saved $175 billion, but experts believe the real number is significantly lower. Meanwhile, according to the Partnership for Public Service, which studies the federal workforce, DOGE's attacks on government personnel — its firings, re-hirings, use of paid administrative leave and all the associated lack of productivity — could cost the government upward of $135 billion this fiscal year, even before the price of defending DOGE's actions in court. Musk's rampage through the bureaucracy may not have created any savings at all, and if it did, they were negligible. Now, Musk's Washington adventure is coming to an end, with the disillusioned billionaire announcing that he's leaving government behind. 'It sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least,' he told The Washington Post. There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred USAID. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 per cent of USAID grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk's foray into politics accomplished. White House officials deny that their decimation of USAID has had fatal consequences. At a hearing in the House last week, Democrats confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio with my colleague Nick Kristof's reporting from East Africa, documenting suffering and death caused by the withdrawal of aid. Rubio insisted no such deaths have happened, but people who've been in the field say he's either lying or misinformed. Atul Gawande, an assistant administrator for global health at USAID in Joe Biden's administration, told me that during a trip to Kenya last week, he visited the national referral hospital. There's been a major increase in the number of patients with advanced HIV symptoms, a result of losing access to antiretroviral medication. At refugee camps on the border of South Sudan, food aid has been cut so severely that people are getting less than 30 per cent of the calories they need. 'It is not enough to survive on, and that has caused skyrocketing levels of severe malnutrition and deaths associated with it,' said Gawande. Musk apparently did not anticipate that it would be bad PR for the world's richest man to take food and medicine from the world's poorest children. The Post reported that he hadn't foreseen 'the intensity of the blowback to his role in politics over the past year.' He's been doing a series of interviews that Axios called an 'image rehab tour.' If there were justice in the world, Musk would never be able to repair his reputation, at least not without devoting the bulk of his fortune to easing the misery he's engendered. Musk's sojourn in government has revealed severe flaws in his character — a blithe, dehumanising cruelty, and a deadly incuriosity. This should shape how he's seen for the rest of his public life. Musk sometimes refers to people he holds in contempt as 'NPCs,' video game speak for characters who aren't controlled by players and thus have no agency. More than just an insult, the term, I think, reveals something about his worldview. He either doesn't view most other people as entirely real or doesn't see the point of treating them as such. As he told Joe Rogan this year, 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy,' referring to the emotion as a 'bug' in our system. Yet even as he prides himself on dispassionate rigour, Musk has proved remarkably uninterested in figuring out how the government that he sought to transform really works. Samantha Power, head of USAID under Joe Biden, told me she tried to speak with members of the new administration, hoping to convince them there were elements of USAID's work that they could leverage for their own agenda. But aside from one meeting with a transition official, her outreach was ignored. Instead, Musk seemed to derive his view of the agency from conspiracy theorists on X. There, he called USAID a 'radical-left political psy op' and amplified a post from the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos smearing it as 'the most gigantic global terror organisation in history.' It would have been easy for Musk to take his private plane to a country like Uganda to see for himself the work USAID has done providing medicine to people with HIV or feeding refugees from South Sudan. Instead, he drew on the counsel of Internet trolls and staffed DOGE with lackeys who were similarly ignorant. 'If you heard the conversations USAID staff had with the DOGE people, there is no word in any language that captures the level of obliviousness about what USAID actually did,' Power said. This kind of intellectual carelessness should make people reevaluate their faith in Musk's brilliance. 'Being president doesn't change who you are; it reveals who you are,' Michelle Obama has said. The same is true, apparently, of being the president's best friend, even fleetingly. — The New York Times
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration to prioritize ‘patriotic Americans' for federal jobs
As President Donald Trump moves to slash the size of the federal workforce, his administration unveiled a plan to ensure that any new hires are 'patriotic Americans' who vow to advance the president's policy priorities. The White House and the agency that serves as the government's human resources arm Thursday released directives for departments to use when recruiting employees in a memo that represents a dramatic shift in federal hiring procedures. The administration's 'merit hiring plan' comes after Trump ordered a revamp to the federal hiring process on his first day in office. The resulting plan issued this week says it aims to ensure that 'only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans' are hired by the government. The 'overly complex Federal hiring system overemphasized discriminatory 'equity' quotas and too often resulted in the hiring of unfit, unskilled bureaucrats,' says the memo authored by Vince Haley, assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. Trump and his allies have railed against civil servants, accusing them of working to undermine the president's policy priorities. The new hiring plan will require job applicants to write short essays describing how they plan to advance Trump's priorities. Under the plan, all federal job vacancy announcements starting at the GS-5 pay grade or above will require short essay responses to questions about their commitment to the Constitution, how they plan to improve government efficiency, how they plan to advance Trump's executive orders and policy priorities, and about their work ethic. Critics called the requirements a loyalty test for the administration, while saying they could make future recruiting even harder. 'I think it's foolish,' said Paul Light, professor emeritus of public service at New York University. 'It's hard enough to get talent these days.' Putting additional hurdles in the way of recruiting for government jobs at this point 'ain't a good thing,' he said. It's important to hire federal workers based on their skills, said Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service. But 'asking every federal applicant to demonstrate work toward presidential policy priorities should not be part of the criteria." 'Many federal employees are air traffic controllers, national park rangers, food safety inspectors and firefighters who carry out the missions of agencies that are authorized by Congress,' she said. 'These public servants, who deliver services directly to the public, should not be forced to answer politicized questions that fail to evaluate the skills they need to do their jobs effectively.' The Trump plan also says it aims to limit the government's focus on recruiting from 'elite universities.' The memo says hiring has focused too much on 'elite universities and credentials' and says it will target new recruits from 'state and land-grant universities, religious colleges and universities, community colleges, high schools, trade and technical schools, homeschooling groups, faith-based groups, American Legion, 4-H youth programs, and the military, veterans, and law enforcement communities.' The administration also bars agency heads from using racial quotas and preferences in federal hiring, recruitment and promotion. The memo directs agencies to 'cease using statistics on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin, or the broader concept of 'underrepresentation' of certain groups' in decisions about hiring or promotions. It orders agencies to stop disseminating information about the composition of agencies' workers based on their race, sex, color, religion or national origin. The hiring plan also aims to speed up the federal hiring process in response to Trump's order directing governmentwide hiring to be reduced to under 80 days. Also on Thursday, the administration issued a memo detailing hiring and talent development plans for leaders within the federal government's career employee ranks known as the Senior Executive Service, or SES. Trump issued a memo on the first day of his administration saying that because those officials 'wield significant governmental authority, they must serve at the pleasure of the President.' The new hiring memo criticizes SES hiring as a 'broken, insular' process that has 'resulted in the hiring of executives who engage in unauthorized disclosure of Executive Branch deliberations, violate the constitutional rights of Americans, refuse to implement policy priorities, or perform their duties inefficiently or negligently.' Previous qualifications for SES hiring 'included unlawful 'diversity, equity and inclusion' (DEI) criteria for hiring Federal executives,' the memo says. The administration says it's eliminating DEI factors in hiring for the service, and will focus on candidates' efficiency, merit and competence, ability to lead, and ability to achieve results. To build a pipeline of potential executive leaders, the memo says, OPM will provide an 80-hour intensive 'fee-based aspiring executive development program' that's 'grounded in the Constitution, laws, and Founding ideals of our government, and will provide training on President Trump's Executive Orders.' That program is 'designed to equip aspiring leaders with the skills, knowledge, technical expertise, and strategic mindset necessary to excel in senior leadership roles,' the memo says.
Politico
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Trump administration to prioritize ‘patriotic Americans' for federal jobs
As President Donald Trump moves to slash the size of the federal workforce, his administration unveiled a plan to ensure that any new hires are 'patriotic Americans' who vow to advance the president's policy priorities. The White House and the agency that serves as the government's human resources arm Thursday released directives for departments to use when recruiting employees in a memo that represents a dramatic shift in federal hiring procedures. The administration's 'merit hiring plan' comes after Trump ordered a revamp to the federal hiring process on his first day in office. The resulting plan issued this week says it aims to ensure that 'only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans' are hired by the government. The 'overly complex Federal hiring system overemphasized discriminatory 'equity' quotas and too often resulted in the hiring of unfit, unskilled bureaucrats,' says the memo authored by Vince Haley, assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. Trump and his allies have railed against civil servants, accusing them of working to undermine the president's policy priorities. The new hiring plan will require job applicants to write short essays describing how they plan to advance Trump's priorities. Under the plan, all federal job vacancy announcements starting at the GS-5 pay grade or above will require short essay responses to questions about their commitment to the Constitution, how they plan to improve government efficiency, how they plan to advance Trump's executive orders and policy priorities, and about their work ethic. Critics called the requirements a loyalty test for the administration, while saying they could make future recruiting even harder. 'I think it's foolish,' said Paul Light, professor emeritus of public service at New York University. 'It's hard enough to get talent these days.' Putting additional hurdles in the way of recruiting for government jobs at this point 'ain't a good thing,' he said. It's important to hire federal workers based on their skills, said Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service. But 'asking every federal applicant to demonstrate work toward presidential policy priorities should not be part of the criteria.' 'Many federal employees are air traffic controllers, national park rangers, food safety inspectors and firefighters who carry out the missions of agencies that are authorized by Congress,' she said. 'These public servants, who deliver services directly to the public, should not be forced to answer politicized questions that fail to evaluate the skills they need to do their jobs effectively.' The Trump plan also says it aims to limit the government's focus on recruiting from 'elite universities.' The memo says hiring has focused too much on 'elite universities and credentials' and says it will target new recruits from 'state and land-grant universities, religious colleges and universities, community colleges, high schools, trade and technical schools, homeschooling groups, faith-based groups, American Legion, 4-H youth programs, and the military, veterans, and law enforcement communities.' The administration also bars agency heads from using racial quotas and preferences in federal hiring, recruitment and promotion. The memo directs agencies to 'cease using statistics on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin, or the broader concept of 'underrepresentation' of certain groups' in decisions about hiring or promotions. It orders agencies to stop disseminating information about the composition of agencies' workers based on their race, sex, color, religion or national origin. The hiring plan also aims to speed up the federal hiring process in response to Trump's order directing governmentwide hiring to be reduced to under 80 days. Also on Thursday, the administration issued a memo detailing hiring and talent development plans for leaders within the federal government's career employee ranks known as the Senior Executive Service, or SES. Trump issued a memo on the first day of his administration saying that because those officials 'wield significant governmental authority, they must serve at the pleasure of the President.' The new hiring memo criticizes SES hiring as a 'broken, insular' process that has 'resulted in the hiring of executives who engage in unauthorized disclosure of Executive Branch deliberations, violate the constitutional rights of Americans, refuse to implement policy priorities, or perform their duties inefficiently or negligently.' Previous qualifications for SES hiring 'included unlawful 'diversity, equity and inclusion' (DEI) criteria for hiring Federal executives,' the memo says. The administration says it's eliminating DEI factors in hiring for the service, and will focus on candidates' efficiency, merit and competence, ability to lead, and ability to achieve results. To build a pipeline of potential executive leaders, the memo says, OPM will provide an 80-hour intensive 'fee-based aspiring executive development program' that's 'grounded in the Constitution, laws, and Founding ideals of our government, and will provide training on President Trump's Executive Orders.' That program is 'designed to equip aspiring leaders with the skills, knowledge, technical expertise, and strategic mindset necessary to excel in senior leadership roles,' the memo says.
Miami Herald
29-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Elon Musk fulfills a promise he recently made to Tesla investors
The candle that burns brightly burns twice as fast. Elon Musk's time in Washington, D.C., was an inferno. He was appointed the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a top advisor to President Donald Trump, though he is not considered an official member of his cabinet - an issue that comes into play later in this story. After initially promising to eliminate trillions of dollars worth of waste, fraud, and abuse from the government's budget, Musk gradually lowered those expectations as the enormity of his task set in. Related: Elon Musk has surprising message on Big Beautiful Bill income tax cuts DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175 billion so far, or about $1,086 per taxpayer, but close scrutiny suggests that number is inflated. For one thing, that figure does not consider all the money DOGE cuts are costing the federal government. According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, DOGE cuts will cost $135 billion this fiscal year. This estimate comes from the costs associated with putting tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers, and lost productivity due to the slimmed-down government headcount. DOGE has offered workers a deferred resignation plan that allows employees to receive full pay and benefits through September without working. DOGE also had to rehire 24,000 government employees after a court ruling invalidated their firing. But despite DOGE's unfinished business, Elon Musk was forced to step down from the unofficial government agency this week. Image source:On May 28, Elon Musk confirmed that his scheduled time as an official "special government employee" was over. "I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending. The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government," Musk said in a post on X. Musk and Trump have both known this day was coming for some time. During Tesla's earnings call earlier this month, Musk told shareholders that he would spend more time at HQ in Austin, Texas, this quarter and wrap up his work in Washington. In April, Trump said, "I want him to stay as long as possible. There's going to be a point where he's going to have to leave." Unlike official cabinet members like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, as a "special government employee," Elon Musk never faced a Senate confirmation hearing. Related: Elon Musk says he is 'paranoid' about this issue; he's right to be "A 'special Government employee' (or 'SGE') is an officer or employee in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government who is appointed to perform important, but limited, services to the Government, with or without compensation, for a period not to exceed 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days," the Department of Interior website says. "This status is important because the ethics rules apply differently to individuals who qualify as SGEs versus other Federal employees and officials." Assuming he has worked consistently since inauguration, Musk's 130-day deadline is May 30. Tesla shares have been on fire since its earnings release, despite the EV maker reporting one of its worst quarters ever. The company reported a 9% decline in first-quarter revenue to $19.3 billion, missing analyst estimates by $2 billion. Earnings of 27 cents per share fell short of Wall Street expectations by 34%. One of the issues during the period was cratering demand in Europe. While only a small percentage of sales was made in Europe, it was a challenging region in the quarter. Sales in Germany reportedly fell 62%, and numbers in Norway, the UK, and France weren't much better. That trend has continued. Just this week, it was reported that Tesla's European sales dropped another 49% in April to 7,261, despite overall EV sales rising 34% in the region during the month, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. More Tesla: Analyst sets eye-popping Tesla stock price targetFund manager has shocking Elon Musk and Tesla predictionLeaked Tesla policy should infuriate Tesla loyalists Tesla sales in the region are down nearly 40% from January to April. Musk has admitted that his political activism has turned some people off of his products. But he also says that his activism has garnered him even more new fans from the opposite end of the political spectrum. He recently spoke at the Qatar Economic Forum, saying that any politically left-leaning buyers who abandoned the company have been replaced by people who align more with his politics. He punctuated his point by emphasizing that Tesla has no problem with demand. Related: Tesla sales woes mount in Europe amid disappointing update The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
An Analysis Says DOGE's Billions in Cuts Will Cost Americans Billions — What That Means for Your Wallet
Elon Musk has been a constant in the headlines while heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since President Trump's return to office. Musk famously said DOGE would cut up to $2 trillion in government waste. Though, DOGE's official site only shows $170 billion in savings. Unfortunately, those savings also come at a cost to Americans' finances, thanks to costs related to re-hiring essential workers and more, according to Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, who spoke to CBS MoneyWatch. For You: Trending Now: Here are four ways DOGE cuts will hit Americans to the tune of $135 billion. The IRS has long been in the crosshairs of Musk and Trump. DOGE has already cut 11% of the workforce — per Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) — particularly auditors, through multiple reduction-in-force (RIF) measures. This seemingly has minimal impact on Americans. However, lost revenue could directly result in the need for tax increases. The Yale Budget Lab said cutting the agency's staff so drastically would lead to much less tax revenue and slower technological progress, costing the government a lot of money over a decade. That lost income will need to be made up somehow, likely through eventual tax hikes. Check Out: Biomedical research wasn't immune to DOGE's chainsaw on spending. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) saw reduced staff and funding due to DOGE. The agency oversees $48 billion in annual spending, researching various diseases and conditions, according to its website. 'By early April, the NIH had experienced $2.4 billion in canceled and frozen grants and contracts, had fired 1,200 employees and induced retirement and resignations from a yet unspecified number. The administration's 2026 budget proposes a 37% further cut to the agency,' said Richard Frank and Sherry Glied of the Brookings Institute. The cuts may seem insignificant in light of the total NIH budget. Less spending at NIH could result in slower discovery of affordable treatment options. It could also limit access to free or low-cost therapies to cure Americans and provide less support for families with medical conditions. Key to DOGE's efforts is reducing the federal workforce. This was accomplished through firings and buyout offers to employees. Roughly 150,000 employees have left the federal workforce already, according to the New York Times. The impact on Americans' wallets comes in manifold ways, with the most obvious being employees who have lost their jobs. Additional impacts range from slowing innovation to job losses in local communities, as federal contractors may have fewer opportunities. Given the size of the federal government, it may seem difficult to pinpoint exact costs caused by DOGE's actions. Tax savings are an undeniable result of many of the cuts, amounting to $38 billion over the next decade, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Those savings could easily vanish for Americans dealing with fewer job opportunities, increased health premiums and out-of-pocket health expenses. Time will tell the economic impact that many Americans will feel. DOGE promised big cuts, but the result pales in comparison, with costs erasing much of the agency's efforts. Those costs don't even include charges tied to legal challenges, thanks to the moves. Any remaining savings could vanish, impacting Americans even more. Editor's note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on More From GOBankingRates 25 Places To Buy a Home If You Want It To Gain Value 3 Reasons Retired Boomers Shouldn't Give Their Kids a Living Inheritance (And 2 Reasons They Should) This article originally appeared on An Analysis Says DOGE's Billions in Cuts Will Cost Americans Billions — What That Means for Your Wallet Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
