Trump and Unchecked Billionaire Musk Have Fired Nearly 6,000 Veterans

anonymoose said:
Still no “sacrifices“. lol
Click to expand...

I can name sacrifices given.

For several years I would go to work, just like everyone else. Except that I didn't come home for months at a time. In my single term I lost friends to the hazards for the job. And that does not include the losses to the enemy (at the time).

Think about going to work tomorrow and hoping you get home in time to celebrate the 4th of July.
 
anonymoose said:
So just because one was once in the military they deserve a do nothing job until retirement?
Click to expand...
No. Being a veteran doesn't entitle you to a job for life. If the government wants to give an advantage to veterans in hiring due to prior experience, that makes sense. But it doesn't entitle you to some sort of tenure because of it.
 

Donald Trump has betrayed veterans — again​


When I think back to the weeks and months immediately following my return home from a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012, my most visceral memory is of a constant feeling of a sort of stunned bewilderment. It was a disorientation born, in part, from the rapid return to civilian, peacetime life but also from the pervasive sense of indifference and disinterest I felt from my fellow citizens despite what American service members were enduring in their name half a world away.

Still, if you had told me then that a draft-dodging New York billionaire could denigrate the service of any veteran and be twice elected to the presidency, I would never have believed you.

WBUR is a nonprofit news organization. Our coverage relies on your financial support. If you value articles like the one you're reading right now, give today.

The cavalcade of depravity that is the first month of President Trump’s second presidency has been effective in obscuring the discrete harms done to different constituencies by the MAGA movement’s efforts to remake the state in a manner maximally offensive to its political opposition. Among those most immediately feeling the deleterious effects of billionaire stormtrooper Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) rapacious assault on the federal government are America’s veterans, that class of citizen so often lauded in poetic terms in our public discourse when institutions find it convenient and self-serving to do so.

Along with USAID, veterans’ services were among the first items on the chopping block. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which has long fallen short of its hiring goals, announced last week that it would cut 1,000 employees. A VA press release defended the firings as “part of a government-wide Trump administration effort to make agencies more efficient, effective and responsive to the American People.” In reality, the effort is part of a thinly veiled campaign to expand the president’s powers by replacing career civil servants with political appointees loyal to the administration rather than the institutional mission.

The purge comes at the expense of the over 9 million veterans enrolled in Veterans Health Administration (VHA), part of the VA. Already, VA caregivers are reporting decreased morale and outright “chaos” at the agency as a result of staffing cutbacks. These cuts included workers responsible for staffing the veterans crisis line, a resource for former service members undergoing acute mental health crises. In a system plagued by long wait times — particularly for behavioral health services to a population with a suicide rate almost 60% higher than the general population — the decrease in workforce promises to only exacerbate existing access issues.

The Trump administration’s betrayal of veterans goes beyond access to services, however. Much maligned on the right, the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives now being gleefully dismantled at the president’s behest have long been a crucial vehicle for increasing veteran representation in the public sector. DEI programs and affinity groups related to military service for federal workers have been banned. The efficacy of these programs in securing government employment for former servicemembers is difficult to overstate. As of 2023, a full 30% of the federal workforce were veterans compared to 6% of the civilian workforce. The mass firings of government workers disproportionately impact veterans by the very nature of the workforce’s composition. Stories abound from veterans terminated across the government, often via boilerplate emails vaguely citing performance issues.

www.wbur.org

Donald Trump has betrayed veterans — again

Republicans once liked to be seen as supportive of veterans, but Trump has ensured that's no longer the case, writes Andrew Carleen. Since Jan. 20, his administration has shown a cruel and shameful disregard for veterans and the federal programs created to support them -- in combat, and once...
www.wbur.org www.wbur.org
 
Magats_Love_NHB said:
The reason you asked "what sacrifices?" is because you are a moron. Next
Click to expand...
Obviously you can’t or won’t answer a very simple question.
So let’s go back to the OP. The OP implies that veterans should be immune from having nonproductive jobs eliminated because they are veterans.
Do you agree with that?
 
T. A. Gardner said:
No. Being a veteran doesn't entitle you to a job for life. If the government wants to give an advantage to veterans in hiring due to prior experience, that makes sense. But it doesn't entitle you to some sort of tenure because of it.
Click to expand...
And that’s my point. I have no problem giving veterans priority in hiring for federal jobs. None at all.
 
“Our veterans make significant sacrifices in service of our country, but those sacrifices do not seem to matter to President Trump and unchecked billionaire Elon Musk,” said Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro. “They are an essential part of our federal workforce, bringing their expertise to every single agency. Republicans are turning their back on them, allowing Musk to fire at least 6,000 veterans and leave them with no way to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads. This move should outrage anyone who respects our veterans and servicemembers and believes our promises to them should be upheld. We have repeatedly asked the Trump administration for additional information on the exact number of veterans they have fired and what they plan to do to support them. The American people deserve answers.”
 
Magats_Love_NHB said:
The reason you asked "what sacrifices?" is because you are a moron. Next
Click to expand...
Ad hominem fallacy (or ad hominem) is an attempt to discredit someone’s argument by personally attacking them. Instead of discussing the argument itself, criticism is directed toward the opponent’s character, which is irrelevant to the discussion.

I accept your tacit surrender.
 
Magats_Love_NHB said:
“Our veterans make significant sacrifices in service of our country, but those sacrifices do not seem to matter to President Trump and unchecked billionaire Elon Musk,” said Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro. “They are an essential part of our federal workforce, bringing their expertise to every single agency. Republicans are turning their back on them, allowing Musk to fire at least 6,000 veterans and leave them with no way to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads. This move should outrage anyone who respects our veterans and servicemembers and believes our promises to them should be upheld. We have repeatedly asked the Trump administration for additional information on the exact number of veterans they have fired and what they plan to do to support them. The American people deserve answers.”
Click to expand...
That was already in the OP. Repeating it doesn’t change it.
 
Magats_Love_NHB said:

Trump and Unchecked Billionaire Musk Have Fired Nearly 6,000 Veterans

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) and Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Ranking Member Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25) released data on the estimated number of veterans fired so far by Trump and unchecked billionaire...
democrats-appropriations.house.gov democrats-appropriations.house.gov

WASHINGTON — House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) and Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Ranking Member Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25) released data on the estimated number of veterans fired so far by Trump and unchecked billionaire President Elon Musk.

“Our veterans make significant sacrifices in service of our country, but those sacrifices do not seem to matter to President Trump and unchecked billionaire Elon Musk,” said Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro. “They are an essential part of our federal workforce, bringing their expertise to every single agency. Republicans are turning their back on them, allowing Musk to fire at least 6,000 veterans and leave them with no way to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads. This move should outrage anyone who respects our veterans and servicemembers and believes our promises to them should be upheld. We have repeatedly asked the Trump administration for additional information on the exact number of veterans they have fired and what they plan to do to support them. The American people deserve answers.”

“Trump and Musk have launched an unwarranted and unjustified attack on the veterans and military spouses who sacrificed so much for all of us. By upending their lives and careers, these groundless firings are a disgraceful assault on heroes who admirably served our country. It is deeply offensive that this Administration would attempt to balance our budget on the backs of our veterans,” said Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Ranking Member Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The fact sheet can be found here, which details how many veterans Donald Trump and Elon Musk have fired so far.

The federal government is the single largest employer of veterans in this country, making up 30 percent of the nearly 2.3 million civilian federal workforce. The so-called “Department of Government Efficiency’s” (DOGE) stated goal to eliminate 75 percent of the federal workforce could mean that up to 500,000 veterans could lose their jobs.

This analysis is an estimate based on publicly available sources. The Administration has failed to respond to any questions requesting details about the firings.

DeLauro and Wasserman Schultz will periodically update this information as more veterans are fired.
Click to expand...
A lot of them were undoubtedly Trump voters
 
anonymoose said:
Didn’t say they weren’t. Some are, some aren’t. If 6,000 workers were fired for doing little to nothing of consequence it’s irrelevant if they were veterans or not.

I was a GS-14 in the mid 90’s.


Exactly my point. If it’s a job that doesn’t produce anything the job gets eliminated.
E.g., you’re probably not seeing postal jobs eliminated.
Click to expand...
They were fired for politics, far-right Trumpian politics. It would take an investigation and knowledge of what the departments do to prove that. Blanket destruction of jobs is horrible and wrong.
 
Magats_Love_NHB said:
Nobody said that. Is this them showing their love and support for veterans?
Click to expand...
Long before a South African immigrant showed up and announced himself the expert on government operations, the government already had a process for weeding out and firing probationary employees who were incompetent, lazy, or not up to snuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top