Lawmakers fear DOGE cuts will drive away next generation of federal workers
Source: NBC News
March 22, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping federal layoffs aren’t just wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of employees across the country. Lawmakers in both parties are warning the cuts will harm the government’s ability to recruit young people out of college — as well as highly skilled candidates from the private sector — causing a ripple effect that could be felt for years or even decades.
“The recruiting challenge they’re creating for themselves is enormous,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., whose state is home to hundreds of thousands of federal workers, said of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts. “I don’t think that’s an accidental byproduct. I think that’s a known consequence — and they don’t care.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., whose state also borders Washington, D.C., and is home to thousands of federal employees, agreed with Kaine that DOGE’s headline-grabbing, scorched-earth approach is designed, in part, to drive away the next generation of civil servants.
“I’m very worried that this will discourage talented young people from joining the federal service,” Van Hollen, the son of two former federal workers, said in an interview. “A lot of people who join the federal service do it for all the right reasons; they’re patriots and they want to serve the country. And with the Musk-Trump approach, they’re effectively terrorizing the federal civil service.”
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lawmakers-fear-doge-cuts-will-drive-away-generation-federal-workers-rcna197085
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Decimating Federal agencies while ruthlessly (and with the highest degree of ignorance, lack of consideration, and disrespect) summarily fire people--many by an email from someone whose knowledge exists of screen time in their grandma's basement eating Cheetos...
Well, the 90s brought New Gingrich's hateful rhetoric that incited Tim McVeigh to bomb the Murrah Federal Building--which surely "showed all those lazy Fed employees"-- but Musk/Trump have done one better. Their bomb is multi-agency/multi-city and yes, it will be multi-generational. And their "bomb" will impact most of the entire populace. Wow. "That'll show 'em"... 
If they haven't figured it out for themselves, I'm sure the professors and advisors are all steering students away from government service. Plus we've got way too many lawyers already. Today's young people had better learn a foreign language and plan on moving to Europe (or Asia) the first chance they get.
If I were in my 20's I'd be looking at Denmark or the Netherlands. Of course Germany is my first choice even now.
a "benign" version of what you see now. He started off his first term with the firing of over 11,000 ATCs and it went downhill from there.
When I started in the '80s, the next youngest person in my lab was literally 15 years OLDER than me (there was that much of a hiring gap).
Glad you found someone who valued your knowledge! 
That was a disgrace. 
The air system has STILL never recovered from that - especially when there was a steady increase in air traffic since that happened. And it is about to get even worse.
Yet the MAGats have pretty much thrown Raygun under the bus... it's that bad.
Ten years of it. What a waste of time.
I have nothing to show for it either.
No one cared to work for them when I did either.
It was a thankless job.
It will be even more difficult to recruit people like me, as GS-2 step 1. Pay was $2.88 an hour. Big damn deal! 
