[bpt3]

How exactly is cutting VA headcount back to 2019 numbers "throwing a wrench into our economic engine"?

This is why we end up with indiscriminate and thoughtless cuts, because the alternative is people who seem to believe that every penny of government spending is absolutely essential the second after the line item is conceived, and the only way to fix any issues that exist is with more spending.

[acdha]

That’s 80k people suddenly, thoughtlessly forced to stop contributing to the economy. In some areas, stable federal jobs are the backbone of the local economy and surprise cuts like that mean that small businesses fold and home prices fall because people can’t make mortgage payments without jobs which aren’t there (this was brutal in San Diego in the early 90s because whole neighborhoods near the big defense contractors went from being full of highly-paid engineers to unemployed, and you’d see people with Ph.D’s applying for software QA jobs just to have some income and health insurance).

If you wanted to cut things responsibly, you’d plan it in advance and think about how to avoid shocking the economy into a recession.

[bpt3]

> If you wanted to cut things responsibly, you’d plan it in advance and think about how to avoid shocking the economy into a recession.

Absolutely. I in no way support what DOGE is doing.

But when people think cuts are needed (and the majority of Americans seem to think that's the case), and the options are your position that the country would seemingly collapse if a single job was cut and someone who is going to take a figurative chainsaw to the federal budget, don't be surprised when the chainsaw wins due to your refusal to compromise on your unreasonable and largely unpopular position.

[acdha]

I don’t see anyone taking the position that you can’t cut a single job. Most of what I see is basically saying that should be a legal process and at the program level - like don’t randomly break GSA leases, say that next year you’re closing a particular program so you don’t tell people to go to the office which you closed or have an operating federal courthouse with no building staff (Phoenix, currently).