While the current administration has thrown a bomb into the Federal workforce, aided and abetted by Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation, unemployment rates are skyrocketing. Why does the general public hate government workers? They are ultimately there to help, and two past presidents have put in place processes to make them more efficient. Your House Representative makes WAAAAY MORE money, gets more free stuff and perks, than any Fed worker.

The assault on government jobs started with the Reagan Administration because the “government is too big!” Reagan also fired FAA personnel which led to exhausted control tower workers. SNL had a great skit about that one, with guest host William Shatner (sorry, couldn’t find a clip but it was Episode #71 from 1986). Those job losses also affected the economy and it was Reagan’s move to destroy the FAA’s union and get them to accept lower wages and less benefits. Like Trump, Reagan was a boon the big business and began the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the oligarchy – which has resulted in our current income inequality with more people needing help from the government to survive. Not to live, but to survive.

At least Reagan was against Russia, not an asset.

The last time the Federal government was sufficiently staffed was during Carter’s term (1976-1980). He overhauled the civil service system to make it more efficient and responsive to the American people. Guess who killed that when he took over? Yes, Reagan. Clinton also let federal workers go, but like Carter it was in the form of streamlining – encouraging workers to retire, remove jobs that were no longer relevant.

Before the internet we had to actually call government offices to receive help with our taxes, passports, get information about programs, and other services. Especially with the IRS during tax season, you could be on hold for 2-3 hours. Many Veterans can tell you the long wait times they had to go through with the Veteran’s Administration to receive their benefits, which they literally fought for. The advent of the internet was a huge help, requiring less people to man phone lines, but it didn’t take away the need for humans to talk directly to other humans.

President Biden understood this and expanded public-facing services, especially the IRS with additional hires to actually audit billionaires who feel they don’t have to pay taxes. This was a huge win for all Americans because we could absorb that money back into our coffers, pay down our debt, fund new investments in our country. Everything Biden did was to the advantage of our nation but legacy news refused to report on it, only focusing on his age or any public gaffe. Our country suffered THE LEAST of any nation after the pandemic. Biden managed to conquer inflation, he created the greatest number of jobs during his administration than ANY OTHER PRESIDENT in history, he took action to fix our crumbling infrastructure, and he was an incredible diplomat on the world stage.

Ultimately it didn’t matter. And now all those people who were hired to help our government, moved into new positions based on their MERITS, and to generally make the government work better for Americans are unemployed – with many more to follow. We need to change our attitude towards people who are hired to help us.