Tag: Firings

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, Where Is Your Faith?

    You  claim to be a follower of Jesus. This is a serious commitment. This means that your allegiance to Jesus should be higher than any allegiance you pledge to President Trump or to any other human being. I respectfully suggest that you are failing in your allegiance to Jesus, especially in the areas of truth and grace. In your position as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), you must provide honest counsel to the president regarding our federal budget and other economic items. Fair enough. Nevertheless, in your meetings with the president this week, you recommended Trump to permanently lay off many thousands of federal workers. You know that it is illegal to use a government shutdown as an excuse to fire federal workers. In previous shutdowns, a distinction has been made between essential workers and non-essential workers. Essential workers continue laboring on the job. Non-essential workers are “furloughed”, that is, they do not report to work during the shutdown, and after it is resolved, they return to their jobs, together with back pay for the time they were “off”. This is a temporary situation during the shutdown. There is NO legal basis for the permanent firing of workers. You can try to get these firings mired down in the courts, but in your heart, you know this is wrong. The well being of hard-working people and their families is at stake. President Trump has gleefully and vindictively announced he will use these layoffs to punish Democrats. I no longer expect any truth from President Trump, but I do expect truth and grace from fellow followers of Jesus.

   You did not learn the “virtue of lying” at Wheaton College where you earned your bachelor’s degree and where I was a professor for 12 years. Our institution had its flaws, but it did not teach Christians to lie or to seek revenge. I expect you to stand up for the truth even when your GOP colleagues are spreading blatant lies. Speaker of the House Johnson and Vice-President Vance have blamed Democrats for the shutdown and have accused them of wanting to give Medicare benefits to undocumented immigrants. This is a lie, because federal law prohibits these immigrants from receiving these benefits.

Spreading these lies and promoting vengeful firings will not lead to a just resolution to the shutdown. I expect better from you.

I Applaud Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski for Her Courage in Denouncing Elon Musk’s Cruel Firings

Lisa Murkowski is a Republican. She has represented her home state of Alaska in the United States Senate since 2002. She is on the Senate Committees on Appropriations, Energy and Natural Resources, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. She chairs the Committee on Indian Affairs. Nevertheless, her most important role (in my opinion) is that she is a major voice in the conscience of our country. She speaks her mind, and her words usually speak truth to power.

Earlier this month, she and the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote a strong letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in which they denounced the freezing of USAID funds and the gutting of that agency that Rubio and Elon Musk had implemented. They accused Rubio and Musk of violating federal law. They demanded that Rubio go to Congress and defend his actions.

Over the last three weeks, Musk has continued his crusade to demolish federal agencies, alleging that he is eliminating “waste, corruption and fraud”. Instead of surgically cutting out just the waste, he has taken a chain saw approach that cuts out healthy programs (like Ebola prevention, protection of nuclear weapons, and actions to fight avian flu).

His actions reached a new extreme over the weekend when he launched a new policy requiring federal workers to write a weekly email report consisting of five bullet points that describe what they had accomplished in the previous week…or face dismissal. Murkowski immediately defended the federal workers and blasted Musk in a post on the X platform. She described Musk’s actions as “absurd”. She used his own language and told him to “get to know each department and agency” BEFORE he cuts federal jobs.

Murkowski then listed off the workers at the agencies that have seen cuts and defended their role in the federal government. “Our public servants work hard to ensure that our national security is protected; that planes land safely; that forest fires do not spread to our homes; that Social Security checks arrive on time; that research for the breakthroughs needed to cure diseases like cancer and ALS continues; and much more” She then concluded, “Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform. The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”

Murkowski’s courage might be contagious. Several of Trump’s appointed Cabinet members protested against Musk’s rash order. FBI Director Kash Patel instructed his employees to “pause” any response to Musk’s questionnaire. Other Cabinet members told their workers to “ignore” Musk’s order. Any sane observer acknowledges that Musk’s action has led to chaos in federal agencies. Up until now, Trump has backed Musk. How long will he tolerate this chaos in his own administration?

Lisa Murkowski: Because you spoke up, we the people appreciate you. Musk cancelled funding for Veteran Affairs. This affects services for veterans’ cancer care, toxin exposure assessment, and even burial services! We the people are raising our voices in protest. According to the most recent news, Musk’s VA reduction in VA funding has been reversed!

Lisa Murkowski: Thank you for your courage and conscience.