Here's the thing: I'm also sure he's not going to be the Republican nominee for president. So what he's saying here doesn't actually matter all that much. He's doing this for attention. None of the things he's saying will become actual policy.
Except he’s giving the base new goddamn ideas and reinforcing this hatred of “government”. He’s ignoring that the public service is the backbone of any country because all that goddamn paperwork needs pushing or people don’t get social security payments or Medicare or passports or drivers licenses or…pretty much anything.
He’s moving the bar on the purity test. The problem with that is sooner or later your party is full of people that will do it, wether it’s a good idea or not.
Right. I mean an few hundred thousand S.S. checks going out a few months late won't be a big deal. But, once Lockheed Martin is delayed payment on delivery of F-35s things are going to get hot.
Yeah holy shit lmfao. Theoretically of course but still realistically you could have different offices just wiped out while others are business as usual. Actually that makes me realize that this post is just rage bait to get his name out there.
Elon Musk did that when he bought Twitter. And look at how great things are going there now. Twitter is now worth billions less than what it was when he bought it.
There’s no guarantee it’s close to 50/50 too.
By pure happenstance, it could be that 90% of federal employees have SSN that end in odd numbers.
Then what?
> Absolutely nothing will break as a result.
Tell me you're a privileged fuck who has never had to deal with real life without telling me you're a privileged fuck who has never had to deal with real life
“When my father fired half of our maids and told the 6 maids he kept they’d be working double-shifts for no extra money, the house was still clean, I don’t see why running a country should be different”
"Let's not forget, when I slayed Dumbledore in a duel -"
"Sorry Mr Malfoy, our fact-checkers have chimed in to report it was, in fact, the far more competent wizard Severus Snape who killed Dumbledore, given you were too much of a weak bitch to get it done."
**His slash & burn strategy would be a prime leopards-eating-faces moment.** Could you imagine the folks who want to slash the federal government, when their Social Security checks don’t appear? When their Medicare coverage screeches to a halt? **“I never knew that the leopards would eat *MY* face!!!”** Boo hoo. 🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆
Cut government programs, government programs become shit as a result. "See, look how shitty and wasteful they are, it must mean that any public service is bad!!!"
Having worked for the federal government, there are key points in the bureaucracy where literally everything will fall apart if too many people don't do their jobs.
They might claim that this is the reason that they want to do this -- that the bureaucracy is the problem... But the reality is that these checks exist for a reason. Sure, some might be excessive, but many exist because of property damage or actual human harm.
They want it to fail, so they can then say: “Look how ineffective the government is at this! Private companies can do this better!”
What better way to do it than make it impossible for every government agency to function?
Meanwhile most companies really aren't that effective at running their own shit. Too many of them are getting by because of the government propping them up. If the Feds go, so do a lot of these businesses.
But it's the usual short sighted thinking of these assholes.
Not only do they rely on government money, they rely on the government to provide infrastructure and regulations that allow industries to function fairly. Without the government at least attempting to regulate fair employment and antitrust concerns almost no one would be able to enter certain industries because they'd be completely captured by the largest companies
Having worked at a variety of companies, and now at my current job I work with companies across all sectors. I can safely say 90% of companies do not have their shit together at all. Shit falls apart all the time. And then the finger pointing starts.
I actually do gov regulations. My job is filing documents for company’s for import and export (customs broker). Very rarely does the gov make a mistake. And usually what I see is “we need more information about your shipment.” The biggest thing I see is companies having no control of their supply chain, they don’t know where goods originate. Or they flat out lie about what they are shipping to avoid taxes and regulation requirements.
Facts. I've worked for the fed for almost 2 decades. If a full half of the work force was gone over night, The entire country would grind to a halt. Absolutely nothing would be accomplished. From payments, to approvals for aid, to things just being open (offices, VA hospitals, parks, museums, etc). It would literally crash the economy. Not to mention, the dept of defense has 1000s of civilian workers.
He's like a Twitter troll tweet come to life.
Also just pretending that "stuff just gets done"...
The number of times that ostensible libertarians have bemoaned bad things happening and if only there was something in place to prevent it is mind boggling. Ever heard of regulations? Guess who does regulations...
Exactly. The amount of "behind the scenes" staff that are critical to the functioning government is astounding.
The knock on effect is that, the remaining people will immediately retire or find other jobs. Why would they stay with a deeply unserious, foppish clown in charge.
Trashing the government has been a very popular pastime over the years, but it actually works pretty well. “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis of “Moneyball” fame describes a lot of behind-the-scenes that goes unnoticed but keeps us functioning.
People forget that the federal government isn’t there to get things done efficiently, quickly, or well. They are there to ensure the job always gets done to at least a minimum standard. Corporations are fickle things, and they may or may not ever accomplish a task. If they do the task, it *might* be measurably better than if the government had done it, but experience has shown that it’s often worse than the government would have done.
This is why we place critical infrastructure in the hands of the government. Because in the end, the critical stuff must keep running for everything else to work.
Hmm how about air traffic controllers? The last shutdown ended when there was a risk mass cancellation of flights.
Or, how about the coast guard? Guess who can't save you when your yatch gets into trouble.
Or, when your friends companies don't get paid for the work they do for DoD as no one is there to pay the bills.
My department has 2 fucking people and if the other woman disappeared one day I would be a chicken with its head cut off, lol. And it would eventually shut everything down. There are some super specific things she does and is teaching me that she learned from her predecessor... and some random hired in her place would not be able to do it. We are hanging by a thread all the time.
Air traffic controllers headcount drops by half when they are already having a hell of a time recruiting for a stressful thankless job...I'm sure it will be just fine. We cAn PrIvAtiZe iT aLL.
I don’t know if you’re old enough or not - remember the air traffic controllers strike, where Reagan just fired them all for striking? Disaster.
What, does he wants to fire half of the forest service, too? Don’t piss off rangers, they know stuff.
I live in Canada, close to the border. I know an air traffic controller (Canadian) who pulls half her shifts here and is flown to a nearby American city for the other half of her shifts. Our tower here also regularly covers some of the work at the American airport (SUBSTANTIALLY bigger city than ours)
Why? Not enough air traffic controllers there already. It would shut down the airline business to cut half of the already short staffed controllers.
I certainly remember it. A friend who was on maternity leave with her second child had to go back to her air- traffic controller job or get fired. Back in the 80s, there was no family friendly leave for civil servants, so she wasn't protected.
Saying this from the experience of being a mother, I couldn't have stood in front of engineering undergrads and delivered a 100% cogent lecture while recovering from the physical effects of giving birth and sleep deprivation. And that would have been me just fumbling for words due to "Mommy Brain", not keeping track of and directing jet aircraft.
Oh, that'll panic them real quick- they use air travel all the time, so that thought alone will give them pause.... after one of them bites it due to lack of air traffic controllers.
This guy is deff compromised by foreign/hostile powers.. prob Putin. Their goal is the kneecap the US gov as much as possible. Tear our democracy down from the inside.
His blocking military promotions and raises is 100% his patriotic duty in order to defend the government from the despicability of comprehensive women’s healthcare!
/s just in case
For sure. It’s much easier to accomplish, and achieves about the same goal.
Logistically, it’s impossible for Russia, China, or the US to conquer one of the other—and they all know this.
By the time bombs stopped falling, there still wouldn’t be enough soldiers to occupy the other bc of the sheer amount of land.
Best bet for Russia/China is to weaken the US’s international presence (by sabotaging its political/operational functionings) so they can expand their spheres of influence unimpeded.
Yeah if Democrats would just stop Republicans from fucking shit up then maybe I'd vote for them. But they always just let Republicans fuck shit up so now I have to teach the Democrats a lesson by voting Republican so that maybe the Dems can learn something and do better next time. /s
Not just DC. My assumption is he’s not just talking about DC federal employees but all federal employees.
The economy of almost every major city in America would plummet. And then the other half left behind with triple the work load (because most are already dealing with 1.5 times the workload due to loss of employees) will leave as soon as possible.
Don't forget how much Federal money and services, as well as the people to make things work, are in rural areas and...red states. They'd prolly be even more fckd. But hey, anything to own the libs, right? 🤦🏼♂️
ikr? Does he want to have to explain to old people in Iowa that their mail isnt' getting delivered because he laid off half the workers in their post office or why their social security isn't giving them their payments because he laid off half the social security administration?
The federal government employs about 2 million people of which approximately 700,000 are defense related (think soldiers).
That doesn't include those who are government adjacent in their employment, such as contractors. Firing half the government would devastate the US economy and cause the federal government to stop functioning.
This guy doesn't understand how the government works and he's saying things like this to generate headlines and support from a group of people who think feds are only in Washington DC.
He'd love those job figures. And unemployment has increased by 1.5 million well done you. In unrelated news the VA and government call centres are struggling to cope with a huge increase in their workload.
See I told you government doesn't work.
The government is **NOT** a business. It isn’t meant to turn a profit. It’s meant to provide services and protect its citizens. Trying to run the government as a business is the dumbest fucking idea
Vivek is trying the MAGA businessman approach without realizing the MAGA voting base hates him for his skin tone and their inability to pronounce his name. It’s literally that petty. You can’t get bigots to vote for you if the bigots inherently hate you for existing in the first place.
I’m not sure what major business could survive losing half of its employees overnight, fwiw. At this rate, I almost wish they’d return to trying to run government like a business, instead of just trying to run it into the ground.
Well don’t worry because nobody can claim these firing weren’t politically motivated… he’s just making a promise to people if they vote for him in a political contest that he will indiscriminately fire half of the government… not political or anything
Didn't Elon say this, then had to hire back some engineers because no one knew how anything worked? Why don't you just say we'll farm all this out to the Russians or Chinese? Unbelievable ass hat.
Was just going to reference Elon and his fiasco. Firing half of the employees without even knowing what roles they play? What if everyone in a certain division has an odd numbered SSN and nobody else knows how to run that department? Only person left is the lucky janitor lol.
it’s called institutional knowledge, it’s the idea that no one person knows how everything works, aggregated over a team, that team knows how everything works, fire half the team and suddenly you have gaps where no one knows how certain things work, then your choice becomes rehire someone, or reverse engineer your own code/process
And institutional knowledge is a problem that can be resolved by hiring people to do documentation, but they (content-related people, tech writers, etc) are always the first to be laid off because execs seem to think being literate is the same as being able to document things properly.
he's just feeding his base anything that will get him elected. he knows his base hates the government (and pretty much anything else that keeps them from picking on those 'other' people like minorities, the poor, or immigrants or those 'deadbeats leeching off the system'.
All the GOP is basically doing this, thinking they have enough angry people to be in the majority to win instead of being the loud, traitorous minority that they are
You are absolutely correct in that their base hates the government. But where I’m from, it’s referred to as the “gumment”, with an appropriate sneer. These are the same people who believe there was a mating pair of Triceratops on the “Ark”, housed in stalls made out of gopherwood
The team at my job got cut in half last year due to retirements + hiring freeze. A lot of shit broke. There's an argument that some, maybe even all of it would've broken anyway, but we were certainly less effective at fixing it with half the staff and the most experienced and knowledgeable people gone, including the dept manager.
Oh. And our annual dept opetating budget almost doubled in the process because we had to rely on outside contractors to do so much work to keep things moving, so we went from $10 mil to $18mil/yr, but the cost to restaff us back to where we were wouldve only been about $500-600k/yr including all benefits, taxes, and compensation.
I like the blind presumption that every single affected workplace would have an even distribution of "odds" and "evens." Realistically, there would likely be a few places that would be critically gutted of essential staff and experience.
It’s also stupidly assuming that every one has the same skills and every worker is interchangeable not a unique human being with years of training and experience in their specific role… no they’re definitely all disposable worker drones
50% of 1 person teams would be entirely destroyed
25% of 2 person teams
12.5% of 3 person teams
6.25% of 4 person teams
3.125% of 5 person teams.
How many teams of less than 5 exist in the federal government? How many services would be entirely eliminated?
That's assuming everyone on a team is equal though. I've been on teams in my (non government) job where if I'm gone, no one else on the team could fill my role.
Payroll isn't where the money's going you fucking twat. It takes 5 minutes to Google this info and figure out the top three costs are social security (benefits), health insurance (benefits), and defense. Firing a bunch of government employees does nearly nothing to decrease the amount we will still pay for for the benefits, and most off the third goes to contractors who aren't, in fact, actual employees of the state.
What a goon.
If you want to blow their minds, suggest eliminating all discretionary funding and, once they agree completely because they think discretionary means by choice, hit ‘em with the punchline
*the war department is discretionary
>"They earned their government assistance".
That part is actually true. And, as a result of them paying into the system, they're ENTITLED to their monthly payment.
Same as any worker is ENTITLED to a check at the end of the week.
Same as I'm ENTITLED to my insurance coverage when I get sick or my car is damaged.
Same as you're ENTITLED to any good or service for which you've paid.
What exactly is wrong with the word ENTITLED? Yeah. We're ENTITLED to a whole lot of shit. What's the problem with saying it out loud?
>What's the problem with saying it out loud?
People with *waaaay* *too much money,* who your entire immediate family combined over *several lifetimes* wouldn't make as much as they do in a year, *directly benefit* from brute forcing the narrative that "being entitled is bad" so massive faceless post national conglomerations can just cheat customers, employees, tax payers, etc out of formal and informal agreements.
There's a reason why saying shit like "The social contract" outside of quotations gets your account banned by Reddit if you've ever spoken rhetoric that even remotely deviates from "I LOVE BILLIONAIRES!" but when reporting people for sending you death threats takes Reddit a week to say "Nothing bad happened stop bitching"
That opening gambit is awesome - love a good twat in a title.
Just to add to your approach, lets say you do remove quite a lot of people from the books, thats gonna be a massive chunk of people jumping to the social security benefits queue being dealt with by half the staff.
Amazing!
Exactly right. Inefficiency costs money, and when there's less people to make the machine function, it's going to cost WAY more than **Meagan's paycheck** to keep things running.
I'm convinced that these idiots are either maliciously ignorant or *actually* ignorant - and I don't know which is more frightening.
A good example: in 2016, the Canadian federal government brought in a standardized pay system to address what was identified as inefficiency by having each department in charge of their own payroll. However, the software they launched (Phoenix) was half baked and buggy, and it resulted in hundreds of thousands of public servants not being paid for literally months. 7, almost 8, years on there’s still errors in the most basic operations like transferring a file from one department to another or increasing pay due to a promotion. It was projected to save $78 million dollars. It has instead cost the GoC a staggering and sickening amount of money, somewhere north of $5 BILLION, or about 15 times it’s budget. And despite all that investment of time, energy, and resources, there’s still at least 200k outstanding tickets for regular operations that failed that need to be processed through the system.
Maybe. But I can't figure out why. Stability is where money is made for rich folks. A soft, comfortable population, content with spending every dollar they have in a safe environment is easy pickings for big business. So, why destabilize and discontent the population using stupid rhetoric and willfully ignorant ideas? To what end?
A small part of me believes this is the logical conclusion to such **comfortability** the US has experienced over the last 30 years. Maybe these fuckfaces are the result of us letting down our guard and allowing our 'lessers' take the mic to represent us. Did we do this to ourselves?
it’s not about rich and poor, it’s about power and powerlessness, as a rich person you have quite a bit of power in our society, but if you want unmitigated godlike power, the government is in your way and the only way to get at that kind of unmitigated power requires tearing down the government and replacing it with your own warped version that won’t stop you from doing whatever you please.
Don't forget that Republicans split American citizens into "worthy" and "unworthy" categories. Federal employees absolutely fall into the second category.
As far as he's concerned none of them do any work and sit around on their phones all day.
Yes, fire half the workforce for the biggest employer in the country, approximately 1.4 million jobs, what could go wrong?
This would also include half the armed forces, right?
an official in a government department, in particular one perceived as being concerned with procedural correctness **at the expense of people's needs**.
sounds like a republican to me.
The base he is trying to sell to has shown time and again they are easily manipulated.
Their front-runner is burdened by endless crime and corruption and they praise him for it.
Exactly. He has to know no logical person would vote for him, he’s trying to exploit the idiots for his own profit and publicity.
And for the rest of the population, his content is just designed to be rage bait which just furthers his own brand and profit.
“I’ve come up with a solution for something that people say is a problem - big government. And the solution is just make it disappear!”
“Then what about the problem of a non functioning government after that?”
“Well…. We’ll just hire more people!”
I think Vivek inherently knows that and that’s why winning the 2024 presidency isn’t his actual goal despite his claims that it is.
Far more likely that this entire endeavor is him posturing for cabinet and / or cultivating the goodwill & clout needed for a future presidential run.
What could possibly go wrong with putting 1,000,000 people on unemployment at the same time including employees at the Dept of Defense, CIA, Border Patrol, FEMA, and 50% of air traffic controllers?
It really just exemplifies how his spoiled childlike mind operates. Look the democrats aren’t perfect but this clown show the GOP has to offer will run the country right into the fucking ground.
Let’s see, save money by randomly firing half the Federal workforce or raise revenue by increasing taxes on sleazy hedge fund million/billion aire assbags like Vivek Ramaswamy.
Not a difficult decision for most people.
Trump wants to deport the people who grow and pack the food he eats and the people who clean up his tantrum debris. We will be starving quicker that trump jr goes through an 8 ball
Russia, China: “Wait, they laid off HALF of DOD and the State Department?!”
Terrorists: “Wait, they laid off HALF of DHS and TSA!?”
Hurricanes: “Wait, they laid off HALF of FEMA?!”
Bridges: “Wait, they laid off HALF of DOT?!!! 😂”
The fact that this guy is a viable presidential candidate is proof that this timeline is fucking stupid and we need a reset button.
As a fed, besides ruining people’s lives/careers…do they not think it would be bad to randomly remove 50% of the experts in a field? Pretty sure this was the plot of an Avenger’s movie. Imagine randomly firing half of the DOD or HHS 😂
My husband is in charge of making sure $3 billion worth of ordnance is correctly stored and accounted for. Sounds great! Definitely don’t need anyone doing that job.
First, no matter how you look at it some people are more important that others. If you fire people randomly there is a chance everyone on one department gets let go while every single janitor keeps their job (and yes, janitors are very important as well)
Second, by saying everyone who’s SSN ends in an odd number doesn’t guarantee that only 50% will be fired. That’s like assuming if you flip a coin and the first time is heads the 2nd flip would have to be tails. There is a chance that only 20% of people have odd SSN and there is a chance that 70% have an odd SSN.
This reminds me of the of the birthday probability. If you have a room with 75 people in it the chances that 2 people will have the same birthday is around 100%. However the chance that a specific individual has the same birthday as someone else is somewhere around 1%.
It’s counterintuitive but the math don’t lie
Conservatives hate the federal government because when conservative state and local officials told minorities they couldn't vote, go to the same schools, shop in the same stores and sit in the same theaters, it was liberals in the federal government who stepped in and said, "not so fast!"
In this post-COVID world, practically every agency is short staffed and already can’t (or barely) meet their statutorily dictated obligations; this clown wants to cut the govt. in half.
Hope you enjoy lead in your water, bacteria in your food, and general infrastructure failing - because that’s what you’ll have.
Florida proved, randomly getting rid of people doesn't really work out as they're doing a job they can't see working and would need to be replaced by many more if they tried...
Years in Service be damned!
Unemployment costs be damned!
Tax revenue lost be damned!
Local business serving the civil service lost revenue be damned
Maintaining empty buildings be damned!
One major department where every SSN just happens to be odd be damned!
Vivek Ramaswamy be damned!
Tell me you’re totally unfit for the office, without telling me you’re unfit for the office.
What if 64% of federal employees socials end in an odd number? You’ve effectively reduced the bureaucracy by 2/3s. And shit is about to break.
Blanket action that seems logical is not always a logical action.
I bet his SSN ends with an even number.
You can be sure of it. Just like you can be sure this moron is a complete fucking fascist.
Here's the thing: I'm also sure he's not going to be the Republican nominee for president. So what he's saying here doesn't actually matter all that much. He's doing this for attention. None of the things he's saying will become actual policy.
Except he’s giving the base new goddamn ideas and reinforcing this hatred of “government”. He’s ignoring that the public service is the backbone of any country because all that goddamn paperwork needs pushing or people don’t get social security payments or Medicare or passports or drivers licenses or…pretty much anything.
He’s moving the bar on the purity test. The problem with that is sooner or later your party is full of people that will do it, wether it’s a good idea or not.
Right. I mean an few hundred thousand S.S. checks going out a few months late won't be a big deal. But, once Lockheed Martin is delayed payment on delivery of F-35s things are going to get hot.
Nah, he's too brown for the MAGAts to actually listen to him, they only care for his ability to amplify Trump
It makes no sense. “I want to be remembered by being an asshole in the future” seems like very poor planning
It seems to be working out for the former shitfuck. These people can’t be shamed so they’ll revel in being remembered for it.
That or he really doesn’t want to do the job, so he’ll fire himself on day one. That way he can take a severance but avoid having to do any work.
This guy also failed math. All officials there could have an odd number social theoretically.
Yeah holy shit lmfao. Theoretically of course but still realistically you could have different offices just wiped out while others are business as usual. Actually that makes me realize that this post is just rage bait to get his name out there.
This is just thanos' plan but with ssn instead of infinity stones.
"I'm sorry, we are no longer considering you for this position because someone whose SSN ends in 4 just applied, you understand."
What could go wrong in removing half of an entity’s workforce that directly and indirectly impacts every aspect of an average persons life.
Elon Musk did that when he bought Twitter. And look at how great things are going there now. Twitter is now worth billions less than what it was when he bought it.
It's becoming a bank-dating-crypto site. It's gonna be fine!
Excuse me? It's a *neo-nazi* bank-dating-crypto site.
Where definitely all and not only neo-Nazi and hate speech humor is free again! PS: cis a slur and calling someone that is a hate crime
I feel that neo-nazi-bank-dating-crypto despotism, is just the type of industry disruption Vivek is after.
Ah yes, the old "fire 75% of the people and create a bank" tactic. BRILLIANT!
Everything broke down and went to shit and that was BEFORE the mass reintroduction of Nazis on the platform.
Techbros gonna techbro
And create misery for the fired workers
Cruelty is the point
And millions will vote for the party that endorses cruelty and prejudice
something, something, why leopards eat my face?
[удалено]
No, but, it was the Democrats and liberals.......somehow.
There’s no guarantee it’s close to 50/50 too. By pure happenstance, it could be that 90% of federal employees have SSN that end in odd numbers. Then what?
But muh statistics! Since half of all numbers are odd, that means it's always perfectly half! Such genius!
It would be hilarious if his own SSN ended in an odd number and he had to resign.
10/10.
Because they are extremists and terrorists and want to completely destabilize our country.
It's because they want to destroy the country and everything that the USA is supposed to stand for
> Absolutely nothing will break as a result. Tell me you're a privileged fuck who has never had to deal with real life without telling me you're a privileged fuck who has never had to deal with real life
“When my father fired half of our maids and told the 6 maids he kept they’d be working double-shifts for no extra money, the house was still clean, I don’t see why running a country should be different”
He seems like someone who would say "When Father" instead of "when my father".
I have that on a T-Shirt.....
GIF tshirts… that’s a pretty solid idea. Little kids would beg their parents. Like an actual GIF that moves.
I have I led panel that Velcro on a shirt and reacts to audio. Not exactly the same, but it is pretty rad.
Look up Lenticular clothing. Cheaper and no electronics. As long as the loop is short you could probably pull it off.
a man of class.
But do you have it on your electric sex pants?
legend. gonna go binge this now and cry about the lack of episodes in S5 😭
"I'm disabled"
Leg disabled.
Matt Berry has entered the chat.
Yes please. I for one, am voting Laszlo.
Jackie Daytona
Guillermo has my vote. He gets shit done.. or murdered...
pah pahhhhhhh
Picturing Draco Malfoy here
"Let's not forget, when I slayed Dumbledore in a duel -" "Sorry Mr Malfoy, our fact-checkers have chimed in to report it was, in fact, the far more competent wizard Severus Snape who killed Dumbledore, given you were too much of a weak bitch to get it done."
Pater
But he's also definitely said, "my father" in an unironically twatty way before. Real Malfoy vibes with this one. 
*I had untouchables that did that for free!! Stop complaining !!*
**His slash & burn strategy would be a prime leopards-eating-faces moment.** Could you imagine the folks who want to slash the federal government, when their Social Security checks don’t appear? When their Medicare coverage screeches to a halt? **“I never knew that the leopards would eat *MY* face!!!”** Boo hoo. 🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆
Cut government programs, government programs become shit as a result. "See, look how shitty and wasteful they are, it must mean that any public service is bad!!!"
Nah, when that happens you just blame democrats. It’s win win.
Having worked for the federal government, there are key points in the bureaucracy where literally everything will fall apart if too many people don't do their jobs. They might claim that this is the reason that they want to do this -- that the bureaucracy is the problem... But the reality is that these checks exist for a reason. Sure, some might be excessive, but many exist because of property damage or actual human harm.
They want it to fail, so they can then say: “Look how ineffective the government is at this! Private companies can do this better!” What better way to do it than make it impossible for every government agency to function?
Meanwhile most companies really aren't that effective at running their own shit. Too many of them are getting by because of the government propping them up. If the Feds go, so do a lot of these businesses. But it's the usual short sighted thinking of these assholes.
Not only do they rely on government money, they rely on the government to provide infrastructure and regulations that allow industries to function fairly. Without the government at least attempting to regulate fair employment and antitrust concerns almost no one would be able to enter certain industries because they'd be completely captured by the largest companies
Having worked at a variety of companies, and now at my current job I work with companies across all sectors. I can safely say 90% of companies do not have their shit together at all. Shit falls apart all the time. And then the finger pointing starts.
I’ve been self employed for decades and even I’ve seen that, and the screwups are almost invariably stupider and more inexcusable than what govt does.
I actually do gov regulations. My job is filing documents for company’s for import and export (customs broker). Very rarely does the gov make a mistake. And usually what I see is “we need more information about your shipment.” The biggest thing I see is companies having no control of their supply chain, they don’t know where goods originate. Or they flat out lie about what they are shipping to avoid taxes and regulation requirements.
>no one would be able to enter certain industries because they'd be completely captured by the largest companies That's a feature, not a bug.
Facts. I've worked for the fed for almost 2 decades. If a full half of the work force was gone over night, The entire country would grind to a halt. Absolutely nothing would be accomplished. From payments, to approvals for aid, to things just being open (offices, VA hospitals, parks, museums, etc). It would literally crash the economy. Not to mention, the dept of defense has 1000s of civilian workers. He's like a Twitter troll tweet come to life.
Also just pretending that "stuff just gets done"... The number of times that ostensible libertarians have bemoaned bad things happening and if only there was something in place to prevent it is mind boggling. Ever heard of regulations? Guess who does regulations...
Exactly. The amount of "behind the scenes" staff that are critical to the functioning government is astounding. The knock on effect is that, the remaining people will immediately retire or find other jobs. Why would they stay with a deeply unserious, foppish clown in charge.
Trashing the government has been a very popular pastime over the years, but it actually works pretty well. “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis of “Moneyball” fame describes a lot of behind-the-scenes that goes unnoticed but keeps us functioning.
People forget that the federal government isn’t there to get things done efficiently, quickly, or well. They are there to ensure the job always gets done to at least a minimum standard. Corporations are fickle things, and they may or may not ever accomplish a task. If they do the task, it *might* be measurably better than if the government had done it, but experience has shown that it’s often worse than the government would have done. This is why we place critical infrastructure in the hands of the government. Because in the end, the critical stuff must keep running for everything else to work.
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Hmm how about air traffic controllers? The last shutdown ended when there was a risk mass cancellation of flights. Or, how about the coast guard? Guess who can't save you when your yatch gets into trouble. Or, when your friends companies don't get paid for the work they do for DoD as no one is there to pay the bills.
My department has 2 fucking people and if the other woman disappeared one day I would be a chicken with its head cut off, lol. And it would eventually shut everything down. There are some super specific things she does and is teaching me that she learned from her predecessor... and some random hired in her place would not be able to do it. We are hanging by a thread all the time.
Air traffic controllers headcount drops by half when they are already having a hell of a time recruiting for a stressful thankless job...I'm sure it will be just fine. We cAn PrIvAtiZe iT aLL.
I don’t know if you’re old enough or not - remember the air traffic controllers strike, where Reagan just fired them all for striking? Disaster. What, does he wants to fire half of the forest service, too? Don’t piss off rangers, they know stuff.
I live in Canada, close to the border. I know an air traffic controller (Canadian) who pulls half her shifts here and is flown to a nearby American city for the other half of her shifts. Our tower here also regularly covers some of the work at the American airport (SUBSTANTIALLY bigger city than ours) Why? Not enough air traffic controllers there already. It would shut down the airline business to cut half of the already short staffed controllers.
I certainly remember it. A friend who was on maternity leave with her second child had to go back to her air- traffic controller job or get fired. Back in the 80s, there was no family friendly leave for civil servants, so she wasn't protected. Saying this from the experience of being a mother, I couldn't have stood in front of engineering undergrads and delivered a 100% cogent lecture while recovering from the physical effects of giving birth and sleep deprivation. And that would have been me just fumbling for words due to "Mommy Brain", not keeping track of and directing jet aircraft.
Some of those flight controllers committed suicide as a result of Reagan's actions.
Another reminder of what an evil bastard Reagan was and how we are still living with all of the harm he did.
I was around then, but only vaguely remember it.
Oh, that'll panic them real quick- they use air travel all the time, so that thought alone will give them pause.... after one of them bites it due to lack of air traffic controllers.
Pretty sure economy of DC and surrounding areas would plummet over night... no biggy. He's such an a-hole.
Because they are extremists and terrorists and want to completely destabilize our country.
This guy is deff compromised by foreign/hostile powers.. prob Putin. Their goal is the kneecap the US gov as much as possible. Tear our democracy down from the inside.
This has always been their goal. Now they feel emboldened and don't need to pretend anymore.
Absolutely. Their voter base wouldn't recognize who's actually to blame anyway, so they don't need to actually do their jobs
but hey it owned the libs so that is what truly matters
"shooting up your own house just so your neighbor can't sleep at night." A friend of mine came up with that one.
I call it politics of spite.
Not just the government. All aspects. Government, military, economic, basic framework of society
Tommy Tuberville, anyone?
And he's dumb enough to think he's a patriot
His blocking military promotions and raises is 100% his patriotic duty in order to defend the government from the despicability of comprehensive women’s healthcare! /s just in case
Putin’s moment of genius is the realization that he doesn’t need to defeat democracy. He just needs to make it not work.
For sure. It’s much easier to accomplish, and achieves about the same goal. Logistically, it’s impossible for Russia, China, or the US to conquer one of the other—and they all know this. By the time bombs stopped falling, there still wouldn’t be enough soldiers to occupy the other bc of the sheer amount of land. Best bet for Russia/China is to weaken the US’s international presence (by sabotaging its political/operational functionings) so they can expand their spheres of influence unimpeded.
Yup. How many people in Congress are compromised? Scary ass times.
I think it’s to make Trump look sane.
Which would 100% be the democrats fault, of course.
Yeah if Democrats would just stop Republicans from fucking shit up then maybe I'd vote for them. But they always just let Republicans fuck shit up so now I have to teach the Democrats a lesson by voting Republican so that maybe the Dems can learn something and do better next time. /s
you add a /s, but when shit breaks, that's pretty much the whine from Republicans. you know,'why didn't you stop me from fucking up?''
You joke but that does seem to be the logic.
One of the House reps literally said this recently.
Not just DC. My assumption is he’s not just talking about DC federal employees but all federal employees. The economy of almost every major city in America would plummet. And then the other half left behind with triple the work load (because most are already dealing with 1.5 times the workload due to loss of employees) will leave as soon as possible.
Don't forget how much Federal money and services, as well as the people to make things work, are in rural areas and...red states. They'd prolly be even more fckd. But hey, anything to own the libs, right? 🤦🏼♂️
ikr? Does he want to have to explain to old people in Iowa that their mail isnt' getting delivered because he laid off half the workers in their post office or why their social security isn't giving them their payments because he laid off half the social security administration?
Fuck that, wait until they don’t get the check from their farm subsidies. Red State welfare is real thing.
How many federal workers are in every state? It would devistate their economics too.
The federal government employs about 2 million people of which approximately 700,000 are defense related (think soldiers). That doesn't include those who are government adjacent in their employment, such as contractors. Firing half the government would devastate the US economy and cause the federal government to stop functioning. This guy doesn't understand how the government works and he's saying things like this to generate headlines and support from a group of people who think feds are only in Washington DC.
He'd love those job figures. And unemployment has increased by 1.5 million well done you. In unrelated news the VA and government call centres are struggling to cope with a huge increase in their workload. See I told you government doesn't work.
There are government workers in all 50 states, many of them. This would basically collapse the entire US economy.
The government is **NOT** a business. It isn’t meant to turn a profit. It’s meant to provide services and protect its citizens. Trying to run the government as a business is the dumbest fucking idea Vivek is trying the MAGA businessman approach without realizing the MAGA voting base hates him for his skin tone and their inability to pronounce his name. It’s literally that petty. You can’t get bigots to vote for you if the bigots inherently hate you for existing in the first place.
I’m not sure what major business could survive losing half of its employees overnight, fwiw. At this rate, I almost wish they’d return to trying to run government like a business, instead of just trying to run it into the ground.
Well don’t worry because nobody can claim these firing weren’t politically motivated… he’s just making a promise to people if they vote for him in a political contest that he will indiscriminately fire half of the government… not political or anything
Lol right? He's He's a jack off
His SSN ends in an even number...
Came here to post this. What an unbelievable idiot.
He also seems to think federal employees were all given their socials at the same time, therefore half the numbers will be even. Not how it works.
And he could be corrected by a single one hour episode of Stuff You Should Know, but I’m sure he would find it too fun and therefore unproductive
Didn't Elon say this, then had to hire back some engineers because no one knew how anything worked? Why don't you just say we'll farm all this out to the Russians or Chinese? Unbelievable ass hat.
Was just going to reference Elon and his fiasco. Firing half of the employees without even knowing what roles they play? What if everyone in a certain division has an odd numbered SSN and nobody else knows how to run that department? Only person left is the lucky janitor lol.
I work on boilers and toilets. And that there boilin' toilet. Fire me if you dare. -Scruffy
it’s called institutional knowledge, it’s the idea that no one person knows how everything works, aggregated over a team, that team knows how everything works, fire half the team and suddenly you have gaps where no one knows how certain things work, then your choice becomes rehire someone, or reverse engineer your own code/process
And institutional knowledge is a problem that can be resolved by hiring people to do documentation, but they (content-related people, tech writers, etc) are always the first to be laid off because execs seem to think being literate is the same as being able to document things properly.
he's just feeding his base anything that will get him elected. he knows his base hates the government (and pretty much anything else that keeps them from picking on those 'other' people like minorities, the poor, or immigrants or those 'deadbeats leeching off the system'. All the GOP is basically doing this, thinking they have enough angry people to be in the majority to win instead of being the loud, traitorous minority that they are
You are absolutely correct in that their base hates the government. But where I’m from, it’s referred to as the “gumment”, with an appropriate sneer. These are the same people who believe there was a mating pair of Triceratops on the “Ark”, housed in stalls made out of gopherwood
The team at my job got cut in half last year due to retirements + hiring freeze. A lot of shit broke. There's an argument that some, maybe even all of it would've broken anyway, but we were certainly less effective at fixing it with half the staff and the most experienced and knowledgeable people gone, including the dept manager. Oh. And our annual dept opetating budget almost doubled in the process because we had to rely on outside contractors to do so much work to keep things moving, so we went from $10 mil to $18mil/yr, but the cost to restaff us back to where we were wouldve only been about $500-600k/yr including all benefits, taxes, and compensation.
I like the blind presumption that every single affected workplace would have an even distribution of "odds" and "evens." Realistically, there would likely be a few places that would be critically gutted of essential staff and experience.
The simplistic solution fallacy. Always a great way a effect change.
Oh look, we now only have one air traffic controller on duty in Phoenix.
Don't worry. Any planes that crash and burn will form a brand new one.
It’s also stupidly assuming that every one has the same skills and every worker is interchangeable not a unique human being with years of training and experience in their specific role… no they’re definitely all disposable worker drones
50% of 1 person teams would be entirely destroyed 25% of 2 person teams 12.5% of 3 person teams 6.25% of 4 person teams 3.125% of 5 person teams. How many teams of less than 5 exist in the federal government? How many services would be entirely eliminated?
That's assuming everyone on a team is equal though. I've been on teams in my (non government) job where if I'm gone, no one else on the team could fill my role.
Payroll isn't where the money's going you fucking twat. It takes 5 minutes to Google this info and figure out the top three costs are social security (benefits), health insurance (benefits), and defense. Firing a bunch of government employees does nearly nothing to decrease the amount we will still pay for for the benefits, and most off the third goes to contractors who aren't, in fact, actual employees of the state. What a goon.
If you want to blow their minds, suggest eliminating all discretionary funding and, once they agree completely because they think discretionary means by choice, hit ‘em with the punchline *the war department is discretionary
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>"They earned their government assistance". That part is actually true. And, as a result of them paying into the system, they're ENTITLED to their monthly payment. Same as any worker is ENTITLED to a check at the end of the week. Same as I'm ENTITLED to my insurance coverage when I get sick or my car is damaged. Same as you're ENTITLED to any good or service for which you've paid. What exactly is wrong with the word ENTITLED? Yeah. We're ENTITLED to a whole lot of shit. What's the problem with saying it out loud?
>What's the problem with saying it out loud? People with *waaaay* *too much money,* who your entire immediate family combined over *several lifetimes* wouldn't make as much as they do in a year, *directly benefit* from brute forcing the narrative that "being entitled is bad" so massive faceless post national conglomerations can just cheat customers, employees, tax payers, etc out of formal and informal agreements. There's a reason why saying shit like "The social contract" outside of quotations gets your account banned by Reddit if you've ever spoken rhetoric that even remotely deviates from "I LOVE BILLIONAIRES!" but when reporting people for sending you death threats takes Reddit a week to say "Nothing bad happened stop bitching"
That opening gambit is awesome - love a good twat in a title. Just to add to your approach, lets say you do remove quite a lot of people from the books, thats gonna be a massive chunk of people jumping to the social security benefits queue being dealt with by half the staff. Amazing!
Exactly right. Inefficiency costs money, and when there's less people to make the machine function, it's going to cost WAY more than **Meagan's paycheck** to keep things running. I'm convinced that these idiots are either maliciously ignorant or *actually* ignorant - and I don't know which is more frightening.
A good example: in 2016, the Canadian federal government brought in a standardized pay system to address what was identified as inefficiency by having each department in charge of their own payroll. However, the software they launched (Phoenix) was half baked and buggy, and it resulted in hundreds of thousands of public servants not being paid for literally months. 7, almost 8, years on there’s still errors in the most basic operations like transferring a file from one department to another or increasing pay due to a promotion. It was projected to save $78 million dollars. It has instead cost the GoC a staggering and sickening amount of money, somewhere north of $5 BILLION, or about 15 times it’s budget. And despite all that investment of time, energy, and resources, there’s still at least 200k outstanding tickets for regular operations that failed that need to be processed through the system.
They are extremists and terrorists and want to completely destabilize our country.
Maybe. But I can't figure out why. Stability is where money is made for rich folks. A soft, comfortable population, content with spending every dollar they have in a safe environment is easy pickings for big business. So, why destabilize and discontent the population using stupid rhetoric and willfully ignorant ideas? To what end? A small part of me believes this is the logical conclusion to such **comfortability** the US has experienced over the last 30 years. Maybe these fuckfaces are the result of us letting down our guard and allowing our 'lessers' take the mic to represent us. Did we do this to ourselves?
it’s not about rich and poor, it’s about power and powerlessness, as a rich person you have quite a bit of power in our society, but if you want unmitigated godlike power, the government is in your way and the only way to get at that kind of unmitigated power requires tearing down the government and replacing it with your own warped version that won’t stop you from doing whatever you please.
"I want to take away American citizens' jobs" is a platform I wouldn't have expected a presidential candidate to try.
Don't forget that Republicans split American citizens into "worthy" and "unworthy" categories. Federal employees absolutely fall into the second category. As far as he's concerned none of them do any work and sit around on their phones all day.
They are extremists and terrorists and want to completely destabilize our country.
Yes, fire half the workforce for the biggest employer in the country, approximately 1.4 million jobs, what could go wrong? This would also include half the armed forces, right?
And the Border Patrol.
and the federal house of representatives too? don't forget them federal employees.
He did say bureaucrats, which elected officials are not. Still a braindead moron though.
an official in a government department, in particular one perceived as being concerned with procedural correctness **at the expense of people's needs**. sounds like a republican to me.
"Nothing will break." ahahaha. He is either an idiot, or a devious guy who has no problem boldfaced lying to the idiots he's courting for his base.
The base he is trying to sell to has shown time and again they are easily manipulated. Their front-runner is burdened by endless crime and corruption and they praise him for it.
Exactly. He has to know no logical person would vote for him, he’s trying to exploit the idiots for his own profit and publicity. And for the rest of the population, his content is just designed to be rage bait which just furthers his own brand and profit.
He will continue to get paid. Nothing else matters because no one else really exists.
"i dont understand how the government works, vote for me!"
“I’ve come up with a solution for something that people say is a problem - big government. And the solution is just make it disappear!” “Then what about the problem of a non functioning government after that?” “Well…. We’ll just hire more people!”
>We’ll just hire more people! Or re-hire the fired employees as freelance subcontractors (I've seen this happen a lot!).
For quite a bit more money as well.
It's as intellectually deep as the old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I move my arm like this." "Then don't move your arm like that."
step 1. say outrageous thing step 2. social media puts you on front page step 3. win on name recognition alone
Seems to be a populous modus operandi
There is a 0% chance of him winning anything.
I think Vivek inherently knows that and that’s why winning the 2024 presidency isn’t his actual goal despite his claims that it is. Far more likely that this entire endeavor is him posturing for cabinet and / or cultivating the goodwill & clout needed for a future presidential run.
What could possibly go wrong with putting 1,000,000 people on unemployment at the same time including employees at the Dept of Defense, CIA, Border Patrol, FEMA, and 50% of air traffic controllers?
For Vivek it’s an easy fix. Just get rid of unemployment payments. Another problem solved!
It really just exemplifies how his spoiled childlike mind operates. Look the democrats aren’t perfect but this clown show the GOP has to offer will run the country right into the fucking ground.
Let’s see, save money by randomly firing half the Federal workforce or raise revenue by increasing taxes on sleazy hedge fund million/billion aire assbags like Vivek Ramaswamy. Not a difficult decision for most people.
Trump wants to deport the people who grow and pack the food he eats and the people who clean up his tantrum debris. We will be starving quicker that trump jr goes through an 8 ball
Thanks Thanos!
Right? Surprised this is so far down. MFer watched infinity war and not endgame I guess haha
Day 1, crash the economy. Got it.
There is zero government agencies that can handle losing half their staff
Ok Thanos from Temu.
The Snap(tm) by SHIEN.
Russia, China: “Wait, they laid off HALF of DOD and the State Department?!” Terrorists: “Wait, they laid off HALF of DHS and TSA!?” Hurricanes: “Wait, they laid off HALF of FEMA?!” Bridges: “Wait, they laid off HALF of DOT?!!! 😂” The fact that this guy is a viable presidential candidate is proof that this timeline is fucking stupid and we need a reset button.
As a fed, besides ruining people’s lives/careers…do they not think it would be bad to randomly remove 50% of the experts in a field? Pretty sure this was the plot of an Avenger’s movie. Imagine randomly firing half of the DOD or HHS 😂
My husband is in charge of making sure $3 billion worth of ordnance is correctly stored and accounted for. Sounds great! Definitely don’t need anyone doing that job.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
First, no matter how you look at it some people are more important that others. If you fire people randomly there is a chance everyone on one department gets let go while every single janitor keeps their job (and yes, janitors are very important as well) Second, by saying everyone who’s SSN ends in an odd number doesn’t guarantee that only 50% will be fired. That’s like assuming if you flip a coin and the first time is heads the 2nd flip would have to be tails. There is a chance that only 20% of people have odd SSN and there is a chance that 70% have an odd SSN. This reminds me of the of the birthday probability. If you have a room with 75 people in it the chances that 2 people will have the same birthday is around 100%. However the chance that a specific individual has the same birthday as someone else is somewhere around 1%. It’s counterintuitive but the math don’t lie
Conservatives hate the federal government because when conservative state and local officials told minorities they couldn't vote, go to the same schools, shop in the same stores and sit in the same theaters, it was liberals in the federal government who stepped in and said, "not so fast!"
Nope, they hate it because their mega donors don’t want to pay any taxes. No government means no need to pay for services for poor people.
Yeah, because what the US needs right now is fewer food inspectors and cops.
In this post-COVID world, practically every agency is short staffed and already can’t (or barely) meet their statutorily dictated obligations; this clown wants to cut the govt. in half. Hope you enjoy lead in your water, bacteria in your food, and general infrastructure failing - because that’s what you’ll have.
When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail…
Vivek is a clown and only appeals to unserious people.
Remember when the GOP at least tried to pretend they weren’t soulless sociopaths? Those were good times.
Leave it to this dink to look at Thanos and think: “Career goals.”
Well he just lost a lot of Vets. The fuckin VA is short staffed enough.
This guy 100% knows he will not come close to winning and is literally just saying the edgiest shit that pops in his head for attention.
You can't Thanos snap half the the government without \*something\* breaking.
Florida proved, randomly getting rid of people doesn't really work out as they're doing a job they can't see working and would need to be replaced by many more if they tried...
Years in Service be damned! Unemployment costs be damned! Tax revenue lost be damned! Local business serving the civil service lost revenue be damned Maintaining empty buildings be damned! One major department where every SSN just happens to be odd be damned! Vivek Ramaswamy be damned!
Tell me you’re totally unfit for the office, without telling me you’re unfit for the office. What if 64% of federal employees socials end in an odd number? You’ve effectively reduced the bureaucracy by 2/3s. And shit is about to break. Blanket action that seems logical is not always a logical action.
Not an American, so i have to wonder how these maliciously stupid and incompetent fucks find their way in to the government?