Promises, Promises

It’s become an election-year staple; celebrities – usually well past the tops of their career bell curves – promising to move to other countries if a Republican is elected or re-elected President.

Of course, I can’t recall a single one that ever did.

But here’s one such promise that, if true, could have a monumental impact on our society:

One in four federal workers would consider leaving their jobs if Trump were elected president, according to a new survey conducted by the Government Business Council, Government Executive Media Group’s research arm. About 14 percent of respondents said they would definitely consider leaving federal service under President Trump, while an additional 11 percent said they might.

 

The findings indicate those leaving government would come from agencies’ top ranks, as a majority of respondents were in General Schedule positions GS-13 and higher.

 

Nearly as many Democrats said they would consider leaving in a Trump administration as would definitely stay, the survey found. Among Democrats, 42 percent said they would consider leaving, while 48 percent would not. Just 8 percent of Republican feds would consider refusing to work in a Trump presidency.

Read on if you want to get even more disgusted with the Federal workforce.

Of course, just like our big-talking celeb class, it’ll never happen.  If Trump is elected, the morning after the inauguration every federal worker will look at that Trump picture on the wall, and then they’ll look at their pension prospectus, and then likely think about what it’d take for someone with no marketable skills in the private sector to get a job, and they’ll sit back down at those government-issued seats and go back to, um, “work“.

But we can dream.

13 thoughts on “Promises, Promises

  1. Well, its worse than what you think. I have several public school teacher relatives in Wisconsin and some of their co-workers retired when Scott Walker won his first election. That’s right, at the ripe old age of 55 or 56, you can retire with decent pay and benies for the rest of your life if you are a government employee. Yeah, times is tough when you work for the government.

  2. There is a plus side to voting for Trump. I wonder if they would extend the offer to include Cruz…..

  3. Only an organization as phony as the Government Business Council would think to ask such a stupid question.

  4. Killing a bureaucracy is a theoretical construct. It’s never actually been done. The only way to do it is to starve the beast.

  5. The only candidate that is actually calling for the literal death of specific federal bureaucracies is Cruz.

  6. Literal death, DMA? I think you mean that the agencies will be ended, not the bureaucrats. :^)

  7. Most of the people who said they would leave are GS-13 or higher. If I’m reading the table right, they make, in Minneapolis, 88k – 114k a year.
    https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2015/MSP.pdf
    So these are probably managers, lawyers, and contract administrators.
    They will leave to become lobbyists. They will still be at the same feeding trough, but on the other side.
    I am not sure anything, other than a Soviet-style collapse, can fix it. In poli-sci we were taught that, since the civil war, all three branches of the federal government have become more powerful, and this power came at the expense of the states and individuals.
    You think you know what a man is and what a woman is? No you don’t. the justice department will tell you what a man is and what a woman is.

  8. Six months ago I predicted Trump would drop out before the Iowa caucuses because to continue the campaign, he would have to endure a lot of losing, even if he was to eventually win. I was wrong, but only because Trump was pretty sure he was going to win. He’s not sure any more. He’d rather quit than give many more concession speeches like yesterday’s. He’ll be out after Super Tuesday, if not before, even though he will win 20-30% of the vote in many states, and could come second in most of them. Cruz will be second, like Huckabee to Bush.

    Saying you’ll vote for Trump is a way to give the finger to the media, the political class, the economic elite, and that guy at work who takes politics too seriously. Actually voting for him in a contest he could conceivably win means picturing him as president, and being partially responsible for him, which is both difficult and embarrassing. A lot of Trump supporters are only in it to watch everyone else explode at the prospect; they’re not actually going to vote for him. Even after all of this time, very few take him seriously as an actual president.

    Cruz will be president like Huckabee and Santorum before him; 80% of his supporters were evangelical Christians. Look for a Rubio/Kasich ticket. The result will depend on how well Clinton and Rubio grow and learn as campaigners in the next 9 months. I’d prefer to see Kasich win, but it’s hard to see that happen now. He was endorsed by the New York Times yesterday; that’s a hard thing for a Republican to recover from.

  9. and then likely think about what it’d take for someone with no marketable skills in the private sector to get a job

    You give them entirely too much credit.

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