Federal Employee Buyout
My brother-in-law is, as of this writing, a software implementation specialist for the Department of Defense. Last night, he got an email (from outside the stand email “chain of command”) offering him one of the 7-month severance buyouts that Trump pitched.
I don't know whether he and my sister are considering him taking the offer or not. Frankly, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that it's proposed in the first place. I want to be generous and accept at face value that it's just a pitch to try and get people to voluntarily cut their own jobs and shrink the size of the federal government. But I just don't buy it. I'm sure that's part of the plan. In fact, I'm certain that's part of the plan. But it's also to weed out who's a loyalist and who isn't. My sister and her husband are certainly not loyalists. And I can guarantee part of the motivation for this move is to see who doesn't want to deal with the bullshit so maaaaaaaaybe they'd be happy to get out while they can.
I can't fault him if he takes it. A very real part of me wants he and my sister and his boys to be free and clear and have him leave with 7 months to find himself other, less authoritarian, work. But yeah, there's also a part of me that is screaming for him to stay, to throw spanners in the gears, to be an impediment to whatever Trump and his cronies might try to do with the DoD.