A Change in Attitude after the November Election
God has a plan and Congress does not.
November 2024 and the election is over. Rep. Mark Alford, a Lake Winnebago Republican, won a second term in Congress Tuesday, gliding to an easy election win in Missouri’s heavily conservative 4th Congressional District. The Associated Press called the race for Alford at 9:24 p.m.
At the time, Alford had 71.5% of the vote compared to Democrat Jeanette Cass’ 26.1% and Libertarian Thomas Holbrook’s 2.5%, according to the AP. The Kansas City Star
Fast forward to February 24, 2025. How quick the attitude changes . . .
Alford said at a town hall in Belton, Missouri, according to The St. Joseph News-Press.
“Just because you have a government job doesn’t mean it’s a lifetime appointment like a Supreme Court. So, I would encourage anyone who finds themselves in this situation to realize that we are going to get this economy turning again. There are jobs available. God has a plan and purpose for your life.”
“You are not a victim; you are a vicTOR.”
“We don’t want your God!” a woman yelled while another exclaimed, “Our God is Christian!”
Among those on the outside was Mollhagen, who was fired from the Natural Resources Conservation Service on Valentine’s Day. A soil conservation technician, she was a probationary employee who had just been with the agency for 10 months.
Mollhagen noted that given her master’s degree in soil science, she was actually overqualified, making her a good deal for the taxpayers. Now she plans to become more politically active before eventually searching for another job.
“This is like breaking things that were not easy to build and will not be easy to repair,” Mollhagen said, adding that cuts will be felt by “the most vulnerable people, left, right and center.”
Daniel Scharpenburg, 1st vice president at National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 66, which represents IRS workers in Kansas City, asked Alford how many federal employees in the metro should be fired without cause. NTEU 66 had braced for up to 1,000 probationary workers to be terminated in Kansas City, though last week’s cuts fell short of that.
Alford responded that many government jobs are important, but likened Trump’s election to a change of ownership at a business that comes with a search for waste, abuse and fraud.
“Government employees are going to be let go and that’s just the reality,” Alford said. “I feel bad that people have been let go, I understand that.”
I do not believe the Congressman does understand. For now, he sits in a seat of power knowing he is secure for now. In time elections will comes again.
“Republicans Head Home For ‘Find Out’ Phase With Their Constituents,” Wonkette
” . . . a search for waste, abuse and fraud.”
The Trump/Musk Administration isn’t looking for waste, abuse and fraud. If they were, they’d hire accountants. This is just random terrorism to cow those remaining. A page from the Stalin purge playbook.
Accountants?
To ferret out the “issues” with the civil service you need management engineers, labor cost analysts, time and motion study professional and AI to discover trends.
Oh, and RICO prosecutors.
BTW, putting an over qualified employee doing lesser work is not uncommon. College grads and veterans come in at GS 5 or less. There are other people doing that “higher” works already.
As my acquaintance of over 35 years used to say…. “if they knew how we spent their money, it would be pitchforks and torches”.
Musk might agree.
Musk might agree but not because he is actually concerned about how the money is spent but because it is a known platitude which could work well to cover his indiscriminate work force reduction.
That it is indiscriminate is the evidence of his self-serving singularly focused goal of cutting the bottom line in the expense column. And it appears to stop any government action toward his companies also.
@paddy,
Musk neither knows nor cares how federal dollars are spent, so who cares what he “agrees” with?
BTW, putting in unqualified employees to do work is a time-honored practice in America. In government, it’s called patronage, and has been going on pretty much as long as the nation has. Unqualified employees in business are, of course, everywhere.
To ferret out opportunities for “government efficiency,” you need accountants. You may also need other competencies as well. DOGE is only interested in shoveling tax dollars into tax cuts for the 1% and corporations.
FWIW,
In my misspent youth, active duty in USAF, during the Reagan years, Reagan was “good” for us giving us new fighter aircraft, etc……
An AF auditor came into my office, he had visited a few of the maintenance shops who had accountable equipment items which were authorized, recorded and managed by one of my offices. He exclaimed he had found over a million (a lot of money in 1982) dollars in “excessive” maintenance equipment….. The Sargent at the shop had said he had not used the equipment.
Th auditor was quite pleased with himself.
I had to explain the seemingly excess equipment were for the new fighter aircraft being issued to the unit. The items would be directly used on the new aircraft, had a high priority to maintain the new aircraft. The supply system sends out maintenance equipment early and the first aircraft that arrive spend most of their time for maintenance training….
Why I discount auditors, which are one specialty in the CPA exam.
@paddy,
Interesting anecdote. FWIW, the plural of anecdote is not data. I would certainly not draw any conclusions based on an anecdote about one stupid auditor. YMMV.
Auditors can be strange. One of ours had the most nit-picky attitude and apparently expected perfection. That was his job. Off duty he knew that most of the items were minor and did not really have that much impact. On duty, they were absolutely real dings that needed to be fixed now.
I find it interesting that the most basic of questions is not being asked by our MSM personalities: Who is going to do the work of these people that have been let go?
Another question related to the new culture war target, working from home that would be most appropriate for the “heartland” states: Do farmers work from home and if so, are they not showing up and getting the work done?
I find it interesting that this “work from home” attach has not been recognized for what it is.