A Disturbing Example of the Incompetence of the DOGE Coders

 A centerpiece of the Trump Administration has been the DOGE efforts to massively reduce the size of the federal workforce.  It is very apparent that this is not a rational or rational process, but is instead a 
break things and fix it later" exercise that focuses more on how easy it is to fire someone rather than on the mission-essential nature of the employee.  Probationary employees are generally easier to fire--and so they are fired regardless of their value.  This is sort of like the joke about the drunk looking for his car keys under a street light because the light is better there.

Perhaps the best example of how dangerous this approach can be was the bone-headed decision to fire hundreds of employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency that maintains and protects America's nuclear weapons. Fortunately, this decision was reversed after Republican Senators from the affected states called the Department  of Energy in panic.

The Washington Post has a good story about this debacle:

The employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration are stewards of a sprawling government system that keeps 5,000 nuclear warheads secure and ready. They make sure radiation doesn’t leak, weapons don’t mistakenly detonate and plutonium doesn’t get into the wrong hands.

 Yet late the night before Valentine’s Day, the Trump administration perfunctorily fired 17 percent of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s workforce, over the strenuous objections of senior nuclear officials.

“The president said workers critical to national security would be exempt from the firings. But then there was an active decision to say these positions are not critical to national security,” said an official at the nuclear agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. “It is so absurd I don’t even know what to say.”

. . .

But the firings did not appear to be driven by a plan to improve the agency. Instead, department leaders compiled a list of all the people who could be fired because they were in their probationary period of employment, and then terminated most of them. The list included many highly specialized experts with advanced degrees who had recently been promoted from another position or joined the agency from the private sector, according to administration officials who were involved.

Sadly, this is not the only example of DOGE incompetence.  They also fired federal employees working to stop bird flu and protect the nation's food supply.  They even fired employees staffing the Veteran's Crisis Line.

Aside from the apparent lack of understanding of the federal agencies suffering cuts, the DOGE entire approach is flawed.   Who are the probationary employees being fired?  Many are long-time federal employees who have recently been promoted to new positions of responsibility, which means they have a proven record of accomplishment.  Others are former contractors with special expertise that the government decided to bring in-house.  And, of course, many are more junior employees who recently graduated from college.  As General Counsel of the Air Force, I went through a difficult Reduction in Force exercise.  In my experience, the probationary employees are not generally the employees you want to let go.  Sometimes they are, but that is certainly not the case as a whole.