Imagine your job being cut without any notice and receiving a poor performance review from people you’ve never met. Now, imagine this happening to hundreds of people at a time, evaluated by individuals with no background in your job or work environment?
We have friends, family members, and neighbors who are losing their jobs. Some have spent years in their field, while others are just starting out. They have families, are integrated into our communities, and work hard to pay off mortgages, raise kids, and fund college tuition.
Their jobs have been taken from them without any evaluation of their work and without consideration for the necessity of their roles. This is being done by an unelected and unsupervised group of people who haven’t undergone the required background checks and have no expertise in the areas they’re cutting. This same group is also gaining access to all the personal data held by our government. This is not how our country is supposed to work. We all hope for a fair shake for a fair day’s work, not random firings with no apparent reason and form letters stating poor performance expressly to prevent rehiring.
The current Administration has every right to review programs and make cuts. However, the proper way to do so is to go to Congress, which initiated these programs, and request reductions.
It is, in fact, illegal for the Executive Branch to cut funding for programs enacted by Congress (Power of the Purse). The wrong way is to simply fire as many people as possible without regard for their performance or need. The wrong way is to independently cut funding to programs established through legislation. This has already resulted in cuts that put us all at risk, which the same Administration is now scrambling to reverse. Do we honestly believe we are better off with fewer Air Traffic Controllers or fewer people monitoring our nuclear weapons stockpile or fewer people managing our forests? The same can be said for others who wrongly cut across our government.
I am not asking you to change your political views or stop demanding the changes you believe are necessary. I am asking that you stand up for our friends, relatives, and neighbors by demanding that Congress put a stop to this insanity. Demand the cuts you want but do it fairly and follow the established process as defined in our Constitution. Do not allow people to be put out on the street and have their ability to be rehired undermined with false statements and no consideration for the importance of their work.
Please contact your Congress person and ask them to do the right thing and stand up for the process defined by our Constitution. Our Constitution demands it! Fairness demands it!
–Scott Ramirez South Lake Tahoe