[_heimdall]

> Not evaluated efficiency cuts. Just thrashing about.

Personally I'm not sold on their tactics so far, but there is another way to view this than thrashing out.

Non-probationary federal employees are protected and not easily fired. If one honestly believes the government is bloated and so far into debt that the budget needs to be balanced at all costs, cutting anyone and anything you can may make sense.

Normally you wouldn't throw good food overboard, but if the ship is sinking you may have no choice other than to throw out anything that isn't bolted down.

[consumer451]

Where exactly is the proof that the ship of government funded science in the USA was sinking?

If you don't mean just US funded science, then what evidence is there that the USA was sinking in general? When I look at the graph of debt increase, it was actually decreasing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1366899/percent-change-n...

[_heimdall]

I meant US budget in general. If they believed the ship that is the US federal government balance sheet is sinking, they would jettison whatever they could.

It isn't about funding science in my scenario, its about funding the government.

[kortilla]

“The debt is increasing at a slower rate” isn’t really enough when interest rates are non zero. As the US has to keep rolling its debt to higher interest rates it’s going to continue to escape decline even with significant cuts to spending

[consumer451]

OK, but if the debt was the actual issue of concern, then we certainly wouldn't be cutting taxes (income) at the same time, would we?

[fragmede]

Are you trying to say that the efforts to reduce the deficit are a circus, designed to get us riled up and entertained, so we don't notice the absolute dismantling of proper constitutional procedure so that billionaires pay lower taxes? Whaaat? That can't be possible!

[russdill]

Government employee payroll makes up a tiny fraction of the budget. It's actually a horrible place to start.

[_heimdall]

> It's actually a horrible place to start.

That depends on what the options are. The executive branch likely does have authority to fire probationary employees. They likely don't have authority to immediately fire non coronation dry employees or to end programs and departments created congress.

This may be the best lever they think they legally have today. If that is the case, and that's an if, they are trying to stick within the letter of the law despite how it is often being reported.

[russdill]

They legally have all the branches. They can use Congress to cut programs they don't want

[pjc50]

This view of the balance sheet is of course bananas.

The worst thing is that the fear of the US becoming Argentina may drive a series of actions that turns the US into Argentina. Well, I'm using them as the poster child here, but really a lot of the Latin American countries have similar economic problems which have been through socialist revolution/CIA-backed coup or vice versa and come off worse each time. It seems this has spread north.

[alabastervlog]

Probationary employees also require a layoff process if you want to do layoffs. They didn’t do it.