I feel like a lot of the discussion is beating around the bush or tangential.
The very simple cause of this wave of layoffs is in response to the “what did you do this week?” email. If you’ve been following closely, a week ago DOGE sent an email to many people, including suspected dead government workers, asking them to list in 5 bullets what they accomplished the prior week. Some people didn't respond after having the last week to do so. Some people protested with insubordinate responses. According to TFA the people let go were unable or unwilling to complete this simple task.
DOGE this DOGE that. At least in this instance it seems like a effective tactic was deployed and cuts were made based on observed performance.
Suspected by Elon Musk, with no factual basis presented. Here's some real facts:
> ...22 of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) had some data on instances of time and attendance
misconduct—including potential fraud—from fiscal years 2015 through 2019... Most (19 of 24) agency Inspectors General (IG) reported that they substantiated
five or fewer allegations of time and attendance misconduct or fraud over the
5-year period. In total, these IGs substantiated 100 allegations, ranging from zero
substantiated allegations at six agencies to more than 10 at four agencies.
Do they think there is somebody out there making millions on fake federal paychecks? They should go find and prosecute them! Hopefully such a criminal is not smart enough to monitor the email accounts and respond, or DOGE's brilliant plan will be foiled.
> Those impacted in the wee hours of Saturday morning also received emails late Friday from DOGE with the subject line, “What did you do last week? Part II.”
They were asked first last last week. And then again on Friday.
——
> According to Politico, the emails — prompting employees to list their weekly accomplishments by Monday — were widely distributed across multiple agencies, including the State Department, the IRS, and the NIH.
Not a single word in that sentence about how every agency receives those emails indicates that the staff let go (i.e the entire 18F workforce) were "unable or unwilling to complete this simple task"
Though the fact that they were asked to submit a list of accomplishments by Monday and fired in the early hours of Saturday morning with a statement their department had been deemed "noncritical" is a pretty good indication that noncompliance had nothing to do with it...
The very simple cause of this wave of layoffs is in response to the “what did you do this week?” email. If you’ve been following closely, a week ago DOGE sent an email to many people, including suspected dead government workers, asking them to list in 5 bullets what they accomplished the prior week. Some people didn't respond after having the last week to do so. Some people protested with insubordinate responses. According to TFA the people let go were unable or unwilling to complete this simple task.
DOGE this DOGE that. At least in this instance it seems like a effective tactic was deployed and cuts were made based on observed performance.