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NEW: This is the full buyout memo from the OPM sent to all Federal employees titled “A Fork in the Road.” The pillars of the new Federal government are clearly laid out.
If Federal employees wish to resign they simply put “RESIGN” in the subject line of the email they received.
The new Government will focus on four pillars:
- A return to full physical presence office culture
- A high performance environment that demands excellence
- A more reduced, streamlined, and flexible workforce that will include downsizings
- A high non-negotiable standard of trust, loyalty, and reliability
The memo says even if you decide to stay there’s no guarantee you will have your job in the future.
If you want to resign you have between Jan 28th - Feb 6th and you will be paid through Sep 30th.
“Whatever path you choose we thank you for your service to the United States of America.”
A new age is beginning. A new America.
That could backfire, as all the productive workers who would be valuable hires on the outside may quit while the goldbricks will hang around.
This could be the single greatest exhibition of bureaucratic judo in modern history, maybe of all time. Instead of waiting for the inevitable malicious compliance, slow-walking, and subversive resistance, Trump offered a golden parachute and an attractive way out to every disgruntled federal employee who considers themselves a “resister.”
Do you hate the idea of working for Trump? Terrific, here you go: Eight months of paid vacation should be plenty of time to find a new gig working for someone else who you like better than the Bad Orange Man.
The email didn’t just make the separation offer. It also explained how things will change for the federal workers who choose to stick around. Specifically, it described “four pillars” of reform. Those of us accustomed to the private sector will wonder what the big deal is about.
But for those who’ve long enjoyed the gentle comforts of a government work environment, the four pillars might either excite and encourage certain workers. They will undoubtedly terrify others.
https://www.opm.gov/fork
Below is the email that was sent to federal employees on January 28, 2025 presenting a deferred resignation offer. If you did not respond to that email and wish to accept the deferred resignation offer, you may do so by following these steps.
1) Send an email to hr@opm.gov from your government account. Only an email from your .gov or .mil account will be accepted.
2) Type the word "Resign" into the "Subject" line of the email. Hit "Send".
DOGE’s Four Pillars of Federal Reform included: (1) Return to Office, (2) a Performance Culture, (3) a More Streamlined and Flexible Workforce, and (4) an Enhanced Standard of Conduct. Each pillar was described in a short paragraph on the web page. Not only must federal workers now get dressed and come in to work, they will also have to, and I am not making this up, strive for excellence.
And it also delivered the bad news. “The majority of federal agencies,” OPM explained, “are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force.”
- A return to full physical presence office culture
President Trump’s federal workforce policy is beginning to look, even to his enemies, like 5-D chess. I’ll explain it in two stories. First, yesterday Newsweek ran a defiant story under the headline, “Former USDA inspector general defies Trump order, escorted from her office.” As you probably recall, President Trump fired 17 of 74 Inspectors General (IGs). The 17 former highly-paid inspectors, who are now disgruntled ex-employees, got together over soy latte and explored their options. Sue? File a grievance? Call the Union? The ex-IGs, well acquainted with technical legal arguments, dithered over the validity of their own termination notices and wondered whether Trump had “legally fired” them. Of the 17, only former USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong (fake name alert) has decided to hashtag-Resist. FAFO, Phyllis.
Ms. Fong’s War was not quite the heroic standoff that media has painted. It seems more like she just waited for security to come get her from her office. Nevertheless, a handful of corporate media articles about Fong’s departure tried to paint the 22-year bureaucrat as “apolitical” and super-effective since she once requested a listeria investigation or something.
I don’t know Ms. Fong. But I’ll go out on a limb here. If the President fires you and then you refuse to leave the office, forcing a security showdown, that sort of proves the point of why you were fired in the first place. Inspectors General are classified as Executive Level III or IV, with an annual salary of around $200,000, plus generous benefits.
Because they criticize other officials, Inspectors General are expected to be among the most professional and ethical employees in the federal government.
If Ms. Fong thought her dismissal was wrong, she could have professionally challenged it in several legal and procedural ways. There was no reason to stage an embarrassing spectacle. The way media tells it, Phyllis was a brave Resister. But when security arrived, Phyllis folded like a cheap pair of LuluLemon knock offs. She just walked out. She didn’t chain herself to her desk. She didn’t make them arrest her. Phyllis clearly isn’t martyr material. ...
But Trump 2.0 flipped the script. Now there are real consequences. People are getting fired. There’s real accountability—Trump’s Team seems to know who they are. This time, there’s no guarantee the Resisters can ride out another four years unscathed. The big blue wall is cracking. Now that they’re forced to stand on their principles and take tangible risks, it looks more like a cowardly, disorganized retreat than steely-eyed defiance. ...
The President’s enemies are beginning to awaken to the formidible possibility that Trump knows exactly what he is doing and is setting traps for them to fall into. The New York Times covered the story yesterday under the headline, “Trump’s Firings Could Bring Court Cases That Expand His Power.” (The article even mentioned our beloved Ms. Fong.) ...
Astonishingly, Trump’s mass firings of top-level commissioners from the NLRB, the Privacy Board, and the EEOC, were thought to be illegal and impossible. But even more historic and astonishing, Trump has fired so many it leaves those agencies without quora. They are dead in the water. These now-paralyzed agencies literally cannot undermine Trump’s agenda, even if they wanted to, for the practical reason that there simply aren’t enough commissioners left to vote on anything. They’re frozen. ...
Strikingly, none of the “abruptly fired” officials have yet sued the federal government—even though Trump is trampling on all sorts of precedents, customs, and statutes. Ms. Fong merely staged a bizarre mini-protest rather than assert her legal rights. All this legal restraint is especially strange considering that in at least one agency, the NLRB, federal law expressly limits the President’s ability to fire commissioners except in very limited circumstances.
The Times and the fired officials smelled a Trump trap.
“The prospect of getting dragged into court,” an alarmed Times observed, “may be exactly what Mr. Trump’s lawyers are hoping for.” What terrified and dismayed the far-left Times and its progressive allies was the ghastly prospect that “any rulings in the president’s favor would establish precedents that would expand presidential power to control the federal government.”
In other words: Trump is hoping that they’ll sue him.
The New York Times began connecting the dots starting with a Reagan-era constitutional interpretation of broad Executive Branch power. The Reaganites believed “that presidents must be able to fire any executive branch official at will.”
“In recent years,” the Times realized with growing horror, “the Supreme Court’s majority — led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office under the Reagan administration — has pushed that idea” of broad executive powers in employment.
Reagan called his constitutional interpretation “unitary executive theory.” It is an uncomplicated view of constitutional separation of powers, holding that the president must exclusively control his own executive branch. Any laws passed by Congress (under Article II) purporting to make Article I executive branch officials independent from the president’s sole control must therefore be unconstitutional.
Hahaha! The mass firings are genius! Trump has got progressives doubting their own theory of permanent federal employment. The President has tied these people into pretzel-like political knots. They literally don’t know what to do.
The Times’ reporter spoke to the 17 Inspectors General —Ms. Fong’s cohort— and asked them when are you going to sue the Orange Man? The depressing answer was: we’re not sure. They worry they might be playing right into Trump’s hands:
Several of those officials have discussed filing a lawsuit seeking an
injunction and a declaration that their removals were illegal. But
such a case would give the Trump administration an opportunity to
argue that the statute protecting inspectors general is an
unconstitutional constraint on the president's powers.
Haha! Can you see it now? The sheer brilliance of Trump’s plan? If they do sue him, then Trump is likely to grow even more powerful. Their only other option to just take it.
DOGEWontAmountToShit says
- A return to full physical presence office culture
no more work from home boondoggles, especially getting Washington DC pay while living and working in low cost of living area like West Virginia
https://www.ernst.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ernst-getting-remote-bureaucrats-back-to-work
.
"The potential cuts are coming just one month before the IRS begins accepting tax returns."
?? The IRS is already accepting tax returns. I am sure plenty of folks have already e-filed.
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Having trouble keeping up.