Down the Rabbit Hole
Federal services meant for us -- the tax payers who paid for them, are shrinking.
317,000 federal employees left their jobs in 2025 since Trump took office.
Trump and Musk take pride in eliminating federal jobs, but what they cut — in some cases, almost club-to-death — are the services we voters depend upon.
Have you fallen down any rabbit holes yet? Warning! The “holes” are getting bigger.
CONSIDER SOCIAL SECURITY1: About 75 million people depend on the program for retirement benefits. It is funded by deductions from working people’s paychecks. The deductions, known as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), pay for Social Security. People have relied on the Social Security Administration (SSA) to aid their retirement since 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the program to protect against old age, unemployment, and poverty — aged people on the streets with no homes, during the Great Depression.
So what did Trump and his sidekick Musk do?
Early 2025 — Musk at work! Closed local and regional offices!
March-April 2025 — Required people to apply for SSA in person at the mostly closed, now-nonexistent offices.
Result — Personnel cuts, combined with the shutdown of local offices, caused panic among our seniors who worried about losing their SS — Spring 2025.
They made more visits to the few remaining offices and called SSA offices, only to find understaffed offices and long waits since 7000 people who had worked to serve Social Security recipients were missing.
Late April —Reversed the In-Person Mandate.
Now, it is reported that Musk’s kids (remember the one who liked to be called “Big Balls”?) have walked away with all the SS data, and some of that is being used in illicit and criminal actions.
I wonder … did anyone learn anything in this mess? I think not! Trump/Musk cuts caused confusion and delays for all of us who depend upon Social Security.
But it’s not just SS, the problem is everywhere! Trump/Musk cuts are sending voters down multiple rabbit holes.
Trump/Musk rifted all the Department of Energy’s staff who kept us safe from nuclear waste? Gone! Public uproar led to the staff being called back. Canceling the safety of nuclear waste is a BIG — totally not beautiful, rabbit hole.
Then there is the measles rabbit hold. Measles cases are turning into an epidemic now that HHS Secretary Kennedy has his bully pulpit to scare people about vaccines that kept kids from getting sick. Three kids died in 2025. They should have been vaccinated.
It isn’t “just” Social Security; it’s also health care, disease prevention, protection against lead poisoning, and research to solve health challenges at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2000 workers eliminated). It’s veterans’ benefits and hospital workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs (2000 nurses and claims agents cut), loan safety at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, funding for public education cut at the Department of Education, and 2000 employees cut from the USDA. So many rabbit holes; so little time.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a federal retiree. As a personal example, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is supposed to deduct the cost of my health insurance from my retiree package, but on December 16, my insurance company called me to say (rather rudely!), “You can’t have any drugs.”
When I asked, “Why?” I was told that I hadn’t paid my bill. At the time, I thought that was impossible. Well, wrong.
When Musk jumped in with his ax to cut government, one of his attacks landed on the OPM. In 2025, OPM is estimated to have lost 1000 jobs.
My small federal retirement annuity includes health insurance coverage. One year ago, I switched my insurance from BCBS to Kaiser. The paperwork was signed, Kaiser transferred my records; I learned I was behind on required vaccines, which I then received. The change went smoothly, or so I thought.
But oops! On December 16, I got a call from Kaiser. A shrill, not very polite voice told me I was fired from my health insurance. I asked why. The answer — I hadn’t paid my bill.
Well, that’s impossible, I thought … OPM pays my bill, and they are reliable. I soon learned that I need to change my verb to “used to be” reliable.”
Oops! I slid down the rabbit hole. Two phone calls with Kaiser, one useless OMB IT form, six more phone calls — each with their very effective recorded voice telling me I would be on hold … all the employees were busy. I’ll bet they were. 10,000 employees gone.
The record “On Hold” was an hour and a half; the shortest was about 30 minutes.
In about a month, I finally found a real person at OPM who figured out what had happened; it took another two weeks until my insurance was restored. The good thing was that I didn’t get ran over by a truck when I operated without insuranc
The error’s timing was interesting. About one year ago, Musk was playing his “Fork in the Road” game, treating federal employees like a game of roulette. And that’s when my “insurance company change” slid down the rabbit hole.
LESSON LEARNED? Just like a car that runs out of oil, our programs do not serve us as intended when the employees are missing.
We all need to ask repeatedly: Where is our money going, i.e., the money that used to pay for people to serve us by running the programs?
ANSWER: Ask the billionaires, the so-called savings go to them.
It may also pay for new “forever wars” …. IRAN, VENEZUELA, Greenland — god forbid, Cuba, name your country. So far, the results of the Iran war are 13 military personnel dead and about 200 injured, but it is getting worse.
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The New York Times: Just a Mess’: Staff Cuts, Rushed Changes and Anxiety at Social Security
Meryl Kornfield and Clara Ence Morse, The Washington Post: Here are the agencies that were cut the most by Trump, new data shows
Jacob Leibenluft, Devin O’Connor and Sam Berger, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Administration’s Abuse of Layoff Powers Shows Need for Congressional Action
Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive: Trump’s cuts to the civil service undermine new tech internship push, good government group argues
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