This is one way to shrink the size of the government.
The White House sent a letter to all two million federal employees, offering them eight months' salary in return for their resignation.
The White House is referring to this program as "deferred resignation," in which a federal employee would agree to resign now in return for getting paid through September.
The idea appears to have originated with Elon Musk, who called the move "A Fork in the Road."
A fork in the road https://t.co/vzk1RYbM5u
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2025
"American taxpayers pay for the salaries of federal government employees, and therefore deserve employees working on their behalf who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months."
Trump's initial moves to "flood the zone" with so many controversial and constitutionally questionable moves appear to be succeeding. His opponents are flummoxed, in shock, and paralyzed.
At least for the moment. But the head start it's given Trump means that most of these executive orders will already be in the implementation process before the opposition can get organized.
"If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce," the email to federal workers reads. "At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions."
The offer will not apply to military personnel, the U.S. Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security, according to Axios. The administration estimates that as many as 10% of the workforce will accept the offer.
Trump is about to initiate a plan to reclassify thousands of civil servants, stripping them of many protections to prevent them from being fired. It will radically affect the notion of "career" civil servants as each incoming administration will have the option of firing thousands of federal employees and replacing them with loyalists.
It wouldn't be necessary if many of these federal employees didn't try to sabotage administrations with which they disagree politically or on policy.
Federal managers will try to stagger those who are leaving in order to avoid chaos. It's not likely to help much. Scare tactics are already being employed to make the chaos even worse than it might be.
Trump’s focus on the federal workforce has become a source of fierce debate in Washington, with Republicans casting the blanket attempts at downsizing as necessary and Democrats decrying them as a threat to democracy. Democratic lawmakers and unions late Monday began advising workers not to take the buyouts, with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) warning on the Senate floor that Trump could “stiff you.”
The number of federal workers overall is largely flat — and down as a percentage of the nation’s total workforce, economists’ preferred metric — over the last four decades, according to federal data. The number of state and local government workers has risen, but not as a share of the national workforce.
Democrats are upset because federal workers are the front line of the "resistance" to Trump. The opposition was counting on federal workers to sabotage Trump's policies they didn't agree with and either ignore them or slow-walk the work, hoping to run out the clock.
Many federal workers proved incapable of performing their jobs in a non-ideological, non-partisan, professional manner when Trump was last president. They have only themselves to blame for this action.
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