Thats a wierd ass stat to discuss because its hard to deduce what an appropriate quantity should be or how to relate it to other factors.

BboroAg said:

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As long as it is going down it is going in the right direction...

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Not if thousands of resource sucking positions have been filled.

A large number could be a good thing as that means those resource sucking positions are not currently sucking resources.

This is a stat that needs to be compared with other stats in order to have any relevance.

Seems the government is running mighty fine without those 695K jobs. Cut em all today. If it is a truly needed position, then it can be evaluated and posted if truly a necessity.

The job market outside is sucking also.

Good Trump!

One of his many accomplishments.

Hoyt Ag said:

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Seems the government is running mighty fine without those 695K jobs. Cut em all today. If it is a truly needed position, then it can be evaluated and posted if truly a necessity.

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It's a mind boggling number.

Biden used Covid to set the baseline for federal employment. Glad to see Trump taking it back down to pre-Covid levels. Honestly, he needs to keep hacking away. The federal government is still chocked full of uneccessary programs and positions.

The federal government was never meant to be the largest single employer in the nation.

I understand the government could save a lot of tax dollars by filling these positions with H1B visas.

Not impressed.

Budget deficit in 2025 - $1.8 trillion. NOT Trump's doing.

Budget deficit in 2026 - probably around $1.8 trillion. Is this on Trump and his Congress?

As AI fully develops, the need for most govt jobs will drop dramatically. Obviously not all, but it should dramatically drop numbers if even partially implemented for admin and even customer service tasks.

AlaskanAg99 said:

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They need to hire more forensic accountants to go after fraud of federal dollars and send a lot of people at the state/federal level to jail.

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Nope.

Just put a bounty on fraud...

Hey Nav said:

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Not impressed.

Budget deficit in 2025 - $1.8 trillion. NOT Trump's doing.

Budget deficit in 2026 - probably around $1.8 trillion. Is this on Trump and his Congress?

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This is such a ridiculous talking point. How do you think that $1.8T eventually becomes $1.7T, then $1.6T, etc? It happens but cutting employment. By cutting programs and departments. We aren't gutting entitlements so this is as good of an opportunity as we've got to make cuts.

Hoyt Ag said:

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Seems the government is running mighty fine without those 695K jobs. Cut em all today. If it is a truly needed position, then it can be evaluated and posted if truly a necessity.

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LOYAL AG said:

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Hey Nav said:

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Not impressed.

Budget deficit in 2025 - $1.8 trillion. NOT Trump's doing.

Budget deficit in 2026 - probably around $1.8 trillion. Is this on Trump and his Congress?

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This is such a ridiculous talking point. How do you think that $1.8T eventually becomes $1.7T, then $1.6T, etc? It happens but cutting employment. By cutting programs and departments. We aren't gutting entitlements so this is as good of an opportunity as we've got to make cuts.

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If the deficit isn't growing, that is an accomplishment in and of itself. My expectation would be that it begins to shrink next year.

I'm actually not holding my breath for either of those occurrences, however.

AlaskanAg99 said:

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They need to hire more forensic accountants to go after fraud of federal dollars and send a lot of people at the state/federal level to jail.

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So are we pro IRS now?

I'm not pro or anti-IRS. They are just the enforcers of tax laws or arbiters of bad direction by leadership . I'm anti-fraud and anti use of the IRS as a political weapon.

The problem is the complexity ( and progressivist disincentives) in the laws which are a Congress problem.

If a job is cut and the real world isn't affected by its loss, was it ever really needed?

And does this mean that those that weren't cut are all needed?

AlaskanAg99 said:

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They need to hire more forensic accountants to go after fraud of federal dollars and send a lot of people at the state/federal level to jail.

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Not gonna happen, the GAO is a joke of an organization and the uniparty is too strong and roots run deep, it's pretty disgusting honestly

AlaskanAg99 said:

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They need to hire more forensic accountants to go after fraud of federal dollars

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They had one. They burned his cars

BTKAG97 said:

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BboroAg said:

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As long as it is going down it is going in the right direction...

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Not if thousands of resource sucking positions have been filled.

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This seems a valid point.

BTKAG97 said:

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BboroAg said:

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As long as it is going down it is going in the right direction...

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Not if thousands of resource sucking positions have been filled.

A large number could be a good thing as that means those resource sucking positions are not currently sucking resources.

This is a stat that needs to be compared with other stats in order to have any relevance.

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Quote:

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They have now fully retraced to early-2019 levels.

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Off the top of my head this stat tells me we've recalibrated to pre-COVID levels which is good. If we are down over half a million government jobs vs where we were I'm not sure what other comparisons we need. The absolute number has dropped significantly so that's good.

Some of us have been asking the government to recalibrate spending back to 2019 levels since we should no longer need the extra $2T per year we added during COVID, but Congress and the WH refuse to do it.

YouBet said:

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BTKAG97 said:

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BboroAg said:

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As long as it is going down it is going in the right direction...

---

Not if thousands of resource sucking positions have been filled.

A large number could be a good thing as that means those resource sucking positions are not currently sucking resources.

This is a stat that needs to be compared with other stats in order to have any relevance.

---

Quote:

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They have now fully retraced to early-2019 levels.

---

Off the top of my head this stat tells me we've recalibrated to pre-COVID levels which is good. If we are down over half a million government jobs vs where we were I'm not sure what other comparisons we need. The absolute number has dropped significantly so that's good.

Some of us have been asking the government to recalibrate spending back to 2019 levels since we should no longer need the extra $2T per year we added during COVID, but Congress and the WH refuse to do it.

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"Jobs Openings" does not tell you if the size of government is growing or shrinking.

Using an overly simplistic example...

The size of government is 10,000 but we want to increase it to 30,000.

Month 1: Size = 10,000, Job Openings = 20,000

After 1 month, 10,000 out of those 20,000 openings have filled.

Month 2: Size = 20,000, Job Openings = 10,000

While Job Openings "fell" in relation to the proceeding month, the size of government increased.


I ***** about the term "Decreased the Deficit" for the same reason.

BTKAG97 said:

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YouBet said:

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BTKAG97 said:

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BboroAg said:

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As long as it is going down it is going in the right direction...

---

Not if thousands of resource sucking positions have been filled.

A large number could be a good thing as that means those resource sucking positions are not currently sucking resources.

This is a stat that needs to be compared with other stats in order to have any relevance.

---

Quote:

---

They have now fully retraced to early-2019 levels.

---

Off the top of my head this stat tells me we've recalibrated to pre-COVID levels which is good. If we are down over half a million government jobs vs where we were I'm not sure what other comparisons we need. The absolute number has dropped significantly so that's good.

Some of us have been asking the government to recalibrate spending back to 2019 levels since we should no longer need the extra $2T per year we added during COVID, but Congress and the WH refuse to do it.

---

"Jobs Openings" does not tell you if the size of government is growing or shrinking.

Using an overly simplistic example...

The size of government is 10,000 but we want to increase it to 30,000.

Month 1: Size = 10,000, Job Openings = 20,000

After 1 month, 10,000 out of those 20,000 openings have filled.

Month 2: Size = 20,000, Job Openings = 10,000

While Job Openings "fell" in relation to the proceeding month, the size of government increased.


I ***** about the term "Decreased the Deficit" for the same reason.

---

I'm making the assumption (which could be false?) that we haven't rehired all the jobs he cut after getting in office. And then is just carry forward of them not re-posting for the most of the jobs that were already cut.

Agree on decreased deficit. We haven't decreased dick.

AlaskanAg99 said:

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They need to hire more forensic accountants to go after fraud of federal dollars and send a lot of people at the state/federal level to jail.

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Receive 1% if discovered fraud that leads to an arrest

No he needs to go hard on NGOs and fraud

Are you sitting down?

California NGOs:
213,720
$593.4 billion/year

New York NGOs:
132,097
$445.8 billion/year

Minnesota NGOs:
41,267
$124.2 billion/year

New Jersey NGOs:
56,332
$113 billion/year

Washington NGOs:
44,332
$139.5 billion/year

Just a few.

Imagine the fraud…

— C3 (@C_3C_3) January 12, 2026

YouBet said:

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BTKAG97 said:

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YouBet said:

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BTKAG97 said:

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BboroAg said:

---

As long as it is going down it is going in the right direction...

---

Not if thousands of resource sucking positions have been filled.

A large number could be a good thing as that means those resource sucking positions are not currently sucking resources.

This is a stat that needs to be compared with other stats in order to have any relevance.

---

Quote:

---

They have now fully retraced to early-2019 levels.

---

Off the top of my head this stat tells me we've recalibrated to pre-COVID levels which is good. If we are down over half a million government jobs vs where we were I'm not sure what other comparisons we need. The absolute number has dropped significantly so that's good.

Some of us have been asking the government to recalibrate spending back to 2019 levels since we should no longer need the extra $2T per year we added during COVID, but Congress and the WH refuse to do it.

---

"Jobs Openings" does not tell you if the size of government is growing or shrinking.

Using an overly simplistic example...

The size of government is 10,000 but we want to increase it to 30,000.

Month 1: Size = 10,000, Job Openings = 20,000

After 1 month, 10,000 out of those 20,000 openings have filled.

Month 2: Size = 20,000, Job Openings = 10,000

While Job Openings "fell" in relation to the proceeding month, the size of government increased.


I ***** about the term "Decreased the Deficit" for the same reason.

---

I'm making the assumption (which could be false?) that we haven't rehired all the jobs he cut after getting in office. And then is just carry forward of them not re-posting for the most of the jobs that were already cut.

Agree on decreased deficit. We haven't decreased dick.

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Lots of people made that same assumption.

Here's the charts you should be looking at.

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/

If you're so inclined to look at some pretty simple charts, you will see that the federal payroll for civilians is lower than it has been in a (almost) century.

The big victories of cutting agency payrolls of those that some feel are wasteful are very very insignificant. Sure, a dollar saved of our tax money is great.

Where would you cut more payroll ? Where would you cut payroll that has any meaningful impact on our country's problem of spending more money than we take in ?

My only anecdotal experience of working with civilians in the DOD is one of being around some of the smartest, hardest working folks I've ever been around.