If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave", does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for Congress? And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway? They're mostly on board for this bullshit aren't they?
Amazingly, so far, it hasn't hurt his approval numbers.
For one, if they dip as low as they might given the expected economic hardship and the other cultural issues, you might start seeing rioting.
For another, I don't think it's a given this is Trump's final term. There already is a congressman trying to get in legislation to change the constitution to allow a third term. Even if that fails, the SCOTUS has already taken some egregious decisions in relation to Trump (full presidential immunity even for political assassinations) - what they might think they can get away with in the next four years is anyone's guess.
He started with (I think) the lowest approval numbers in modern records so to an extent it was probably priced in from the outset.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump...
You've gotta understand the dynamics of social media information warfare. Loyalty trumps any other considerations like factuality or consistency, people will denounce tomorrow what they championed today if need be. I've seen some pro posters who post contradictory responses to Trump or Musk statements and then just delete whichever one gets less positive engagement.
It would be Trump/Elon.
Someone told me the details of how they could not pay people. It’s administrivia. It will go unnoticed by most just like how the twitter folks not getting paid went unnoticed by most.
> And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway?
They give zero fucks about fucking over feds or former Feds, as they are (allegedly) all lazy and useless.
The end result will be less money spent (trivial, but still) and a lower head count moving forward.
The Republican rhetoric on this largely doesn’t jibe with reality.
Yes, there are underemployed people in the federal government (as exist in any large org). Identifying that slack and cutting it is not something that can be done with laser shots from space. They can only be done from the ground, imho. The current way they are doing things is going to end with a lot of unpleasant unintended consequences.
The idea in Project 2025 is mostly to take this to a whole new level and apply it to the majority of the federal government.