civil service

Trump’s Shutdown Warning: Permanent Federal Layoffs Could Follow

September 29, 2025 By MKE Community Journal Leave a Comment

Government Bailout (Photo by Douglass Rissing)

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

The nation is bracing for a government shutdown unlike any in its history. At the center stands President Donald Trump, who has declared that if Congress cannot keep the government open, federal workers may not just be furloughed — they may be permanently fired.

“We are going to cut a lot of the people that … we’re able to cut on a permanent basis,” Trump told NBC News. “I’d rather not do that.” Traditionally, shutdowns have meant furloughs followed by back pay when the government reopens. Trump’s directives are different. The White House Office of Management and Budget has told agencies to treat the closure as an “opportunity” to reduce staff. “Federal employees are not bargaining chips. They are veterans, caregivers, law enforcement officers, and neighbors who serve their country and fellow Americans every day. They deserve stability and respect, not pink slips and political games,” the American Federation of Government Employees stated.

“Of course, you become frugal with your spending, only buying what you need. You prepare for a furlough. Except in this case, with Trump, you prepare to be unjustly laid off,” a park ranger told TIME. “It seems like posturing. I don’t think they will do that. But President Trump has been willing to take big risks,” Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research, said. “This is just running over innocent bystanders. It’s not only bad economics … but it’s profoundly unfair,” Jared Bernstein, former White House adviser, said.

“These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as this week,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stated. “Brace yourselves for one hell of a storm,” a senior Democratic aide said. For millions of families, the storm is not politics — it is food on the table, rent due, medicine bought or delayed. This time, the stakes reach beyond Washington. The country is being told to prepare not only for a shutdown, but for the sudden dismantling of its own civil service.

Trump Elevates White Nationalist Darren Beattie to Key Government Role

February 4, 2025 By MKE Community Journal Leave a Comment

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

President Donald Trump has once again elevated a known white nationalist to a key government position, appointing Darren Beattie as the acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Beattie, who has a long record of racist, misogynistic, and extremist rhetoric, will now be responsible for shaping U.S. messaging abroad, including on issues of counterterrorism and violent extremism. For African Americans and other marginalized communities, Beattie’s appointment is yet another clear signal that this administration prioritizes individuals who openly promote white supremacy and hostility toward diversity. This pattern has been a hallmark of Trump’s administration, where figures with histories of racism, bigotry, and extremism have been strategically placed in powerful positions. Beattie, a former speechwriter for Trump, was dismissed from the White House in 2018 after reports surfaced of his ties to white nationalist groups. Since then, he has built a platform to amplify extremist ideology, founding the right-wing media outlet Revolver News, which has spread disinformation, particularly regarding the January 6 attack. Beattie has repeatedly promoted baseless conspiracies, including the false claim that federal agencies orchestrated the insurrection, calling it a “Fedsurrection.”

Beattie’s record of explicit racism and misogyny is well-documented. In one tweet last year, he declared, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities and demoralizing competent white men.” He praised Dr. James Watson; the disgraced scientist who claimed Black people were genetically inferior to white people. Beattie has also taken direct aim at Black lawmakers and policy leaders, demanding that they “learn their place” and “take a knee to MAGA.” In a series of deleted tweets following the January 6 attack, he called for Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to kneel before MAGA supporters, while also targeting Black figures such as Senator Tim Scott, historian Ibram X. Kendi, and Kay Cole James of the Heritage Foundation with the same racist command.

His attacks extend to gender. In 2020, he criticized pop star Taylor Swift for opposing a Tennessee Capitol monument honoring Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. He compared Swift’s advocacy to performing sexual favors for music producers, writing, “That celebrities are required to debase themselves with such statements is, in some ways, even more humiliating than the physical favors they are required to perform for their producers.” His statements on foreign policy have also raised concerns. In July 2024, Beattie dismissed concerns over a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, writing that it “might mean fewer drag queen parades in Taiwan, but otherwise not the end of the world,” while suggesting the U.S. should negotiate “massive concessions from China on Africa and Antarctica.” In September 2024, he implied that the U.S. intelligence community was more likely to be behind assassination attempts on Trump’s life than Iran. His disdain for U.S. diplomatic institutions was evident in his 2021 remark, “Imagine having respect for the State Department.”

Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett railed against Trump, Beattie, and the administration’s opposition to diversity. “The only people that are crying are the mediocre white boys that have been beaten out by people that historically have had to work so much harder,” Crockett said. She addressed Beattie’s complaints about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, saying, “If you are competent, you are not concerned.” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy also blasted Beattie’s appointment. “It seems to be standard that the qualification to serve in the Trump administration is affection for racist and misogynist philosophy,” Murphy asserted. Timothy Welbeck, director of Temple University’s Center for Anti-Racism, stated, “The United States cannot say that it’s fully been a meritocracy when we have 249 years of slavery, 90 years of racialized segregation, and barred women from entering into the workforce in meaningful ways for much of our nation’s history.” Murphy added, “There seems to be people like him being peppered throughout Trump’s government.”

GOP Officials Privately Admit Trump’s Federal Buyout Plan Violates Federal Law

February 4, 2025 By MKE Community Journal Leave a Comment

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Federal employees across the country received an unsettling email Monday morning—a directive from the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) outlining a so-called “deferred resignation program” that offers workers guaranteed pay and benefits until September 30, 2025—months beyond the government’s current funding deadline. Legal experts, state attorneys general, and labor organizations are warning that the administration’s move is not only legally dubious but outright illegal. It violates the Anti-Deficiency Act, which bars the government from spending money that Congress has not authorized.

GOP Officials Acknowledge Buyout Program Is Illegal

While congressional Republicans have remained largely silent, GOP officials privately admit that the Trump administration’s offer to pay federal employees beyond the government’s mid-March funding deadline violates federal law. “This is an outright violation of federal law,” one Republican official told CBS News. “Anybody else would be walked out of an agency for going $1 beyond appropriated dollars. The back-of-the-napkin math on this offer—paying all federal employees for 6.5 months beyond current appropriations—comes out to about $50 billion. Even if only a fraction accepts, the obligation is still incurred.” Despite these warnings, few expect congressional Republicans to challenge the administration’s move, leaving the program’s legality in limbo.

State Attorneys General Warn Federal Employees to Avoid the Scheme

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown joined 11 other states in cautioning federal employees against the Trump administration’s proposal, calling it an attack on the government’s ability to serve the public. “The terms of this vague, so-called ‘deferred resignation’ put federal employees in an ambiguous position and risk straining essential government resources that people across the state and country rely on to live full, healthy lives,” Brown said in a statement Monday. Unions representing federal workers have also condemned the move, warning that it is nothing more than an attempt to dismantle the civil service under the guise of cost-cutting.

“The number of civil servants hasn’t meaningfully changed since 1970, but more Americans than ever rely on government services,” the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said. “Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.”

The Deferred Resignation Offer: A Legal and Logistical Mess

The latest email from OPM, titled “Fork in the Road”, is the third communication sent to federal employees regarding the resignation plan. The message, according to CBS News, reads:

Q: The current funding bill for the federal government expires on March 14. Will I still receive full pay and benefits if the money runs out?

A: Any government shutdown could potentially affect an employee’s pay regardless of whether he or she has accepted the deferred resignation offer. Moreover, if you accept the deferred resignation offer, you would still be entitled to backpay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act.

Legal experts have pointed out that the Administrative Leave Act only allows agencies to place employees on 10 workdays of paid leave in a calendar year—nowhere near the eight months of paid leave that OPM is now offering under the Trump administration’s directive.

“This email is another ill-motivated effort to get as many federal employees to quit as soon as possible,” said Peter Jenkins, senior counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). “OPM has no legal authority to reliably claim that the Trump administration will put everyone who quits in the next eight days on paid administrative leave throughout the next eight months.”

According to PEER’s analysis, OPM’s website explicitly states that the maximum incentive for voluntary resignations is capped at $25,000—a stark contrast to the months-long compensation the administration promises.

Further, PEER’s executive director, Tim Whitehouse, said federal employees should be extremely skeptical of the buyout offer.

“The country needs a strong civil service to help address these threats, something this administration seems determined to destroy,” Whitehouse told NPR. “Federal employees should be very skeptical about accepting this offer.”

History Shows Buyouts Lead to Higher Costs and Workforce Instability

Buyouts and workforce reductions have been tried before, with disastrous consequences. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on similar buyouts during the Clinton administration in the 1990s found that many agencies granted buyouts without a clear strategy, leading to a loss of institutional knowledge and forcing the government to hire back many of the same employees as higher-paid consultants. Experts warn that this time’s effects could be even worse, particularly given the Trump administration’s efforts to sideline federal employees working in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice roles.

“In a cruel twist, the administration has arbitrarily sidelined employees across the government who work on diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental justice issues,” PEER reported. These employees, who were already placed on administrative leave and denied access to their emails, cannot even respond to this offer. Despite the administration’s claims that the buyout will save money, economists say it is unlikely to deliver the promised results.

“The government spends about $350 billion a year on federal employees—just 5% of the total budget—yet this administration is determined to gut the civil service as if it’s some bloated bureaucracy,” said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, in an interview with CBS News.

Widespread Fallout Looms as Buyout Deadline Nears

With the February 6 deadline fast approaching, federal workers nationwide are being forced to decide whether to accept an offer that could leave them without legal recourse if the administration fails to follow through on its promises. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans remain silent, despite growing concerns from legal experts, state officials, and workers. According to Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, many of these federal workers are veterans and professionals who have dedicated their lives to serving the country.

“Most people don’t understand that lots of people in the military go into civil service because they want to continue to serve,” Stier told NPR.