Citizen Cartwright

Help for federal workers trying to decide whether to resign

It’s our good news Friday, but it seems important to summarize instead yesterday’s article by Michelle Singletary, personal finance columnist at The Washington Post, headlined “Federal workers should tell Trump ‘no deal’ on resignation offer.”

 

Her reasons to decline the offer that’s in a Tuesday email to workers from the federal Office of Personnel Management: 

 

— The process is rushed. The deadline to accept the offer is Feb. 6, but among the things to consider are job opportunities in the private sector and savings to cover a possible long period of unemployment. 

 

And “if you have an outstanding loan with the Thrift Savings Plan? You’ll have to keep making payments. If you can’t, you may have to pay income taxes on the distribution, and you could be subject to a 10 percent early withdrawal penalty tax if you’re younger than 59½.”

 

— There’s no guarantee you can rescind your resignation as has been permitted in the past.

 

According to Singletary’s analysis of OPM’s FAQs, their message is, “You can ask [for a rescission], but the answer will likely be ‘no.’”

 

— To resign, workers are to “Type the word ‘Resign’ into the body of this reply email. Hit ‘Send.’”

 

“There should be a process that is clearly spelled out before anyone is required to submit a resignation email,” Singletary says.

 

— The email “doesn’t explicitly state or cite any law or rule that will allow you to stay on administrative leave and still be paid until Sept. 30,” Singletary says.

 

And “if lawsuits emerge challenging this process and they prove successful, you may be unable to hold onto your job if you’ve already ‘voluntarily’ resigned,” she says.

 

— “Nothing is quite guaranteed,” Singletary says.

 

“Another part of the email if you hit reply would say, ‘I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.’”

 

“The OPM FAQ added, ‘Except in rare cases determined by your agency, you are not expected to work.’”

 

— “The purpose of this offer is to intimidate you into resigning,” Singletary says.

“‘At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions,’ the email says.”

Singletary concludes: “This so-called volunteer decision is a trap and a travesty to those who work hard to serve the American people. I see you. I value you, and you don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

 

By the way, yesterday I called Social Security. I was on hold for three and a half hours. When I got through, the person I talked to seemed experienced and well trained, and I think the answer to my question was correct. 

 

The person I talked to said Social Security employees received the resignation offer. President Trump has said Social Security will be exempt from his cuts. But after this resignation offer, how long will it take to get through to Social Security in the future, and what will the quality of the assistance be?

Trump’s reaction to D.C. plane crash

I think you’ll be interested in historian Heather Cox Richardson’s analysis of what the president’s “reaction to this tragedy says about the ideology of the new Trump administration.”

Also in the news

Five years after Britain, ‘an island nation with a robust sense of its historical importance,’ left the EU

 

In German parliament, firewall against working with far-right cracks

 

Mexico president asks Google Maps not to rename Gulf of Mexico

 

Several top FBI officials told to resign or be demoted

 

Senate confirms Doug Burgum to be interior secretary, on 79-18 vote

 

At her confirmation hearing, Tulsi Gabbard declines to call Snowden a traitor or disavow her meetings with Syria’s Assad

 

At confirmation hearing to be FBI director, Kash Patel says he doesn’t agree with scope of Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons 

 

Day 2 of RFK Jr. hearings: Some GOP committee members have concerns, including the chairman, who’s a doctor

FDA approves new type of painkiller designed to eliminate risk of addiction, overdose associated with opioids

Good, reasonable people

“How could my family members, who are on the other side of the political divide from me, be so unmoving, so unthinking, so stubborn? And on the other hand, I know that they’re not stupid people, and they’re not bad people. These are people I love.”

 

These thoughts led Keith Payne, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to research identity and political division. He explains his findings in his book “Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America’s Dangerous Divide,” which was published in October.

 

“The key idea behind what’s called social identity theory is that we derive a lot of our sense of self-esteem from the groups that we belong to, the groups that are most important to us, whether that’s groups like race, ethnic groups, or groups like national groups or religious groups. We all want to believe that we’re good and reasonable people, and that we’re good and reasonable members of our groups, and that the people who belong to those groups are good people, too,” Payne says in an interview in UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Magazine. 

 
“And that’s sort of what I call the psychological bottom line, that whatever new argument or piece of information we’re presented with, we process it in a way that has to add up to maintain the belief that I’m good and my groups are good, too,” he says.

 

“So, if I’m presented with a piece of information that suggests that my group is wrong or has done something bad, there are a thousand ways that we can counter, argue, or change the subject, or switch attention, or move the goalposts rather than engaging with the facts,” Payne says. “We go around and around in these patterns of thinking to find some way to justify that I am right, my groups are right, and we’re good people. Both sides are doing this. There is a competition of mental gymnastics in which we use facts or figures or evidence as tools, or even as weapons, to just defend my sense that I’m a good person.”

 

“If you get really deep into the human psychology of social identity, there’s a way of short-circuiting a lot of the defensiveness that we see, because the whole game that we’re playing is trying to defend and justify yourself as a good, reasonable person. So if you walk into the conversation saying, look, I know you’re a good person, I know you’re reasonable, it cuts right to the heart of the matter, and then you can have a more productive conversation,” Payne says.

 

Here is a review of Payne’s book by The New York Times.

Also in the news

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Trump signs Laken Riley immigration bill

 

Senate confirms former New York GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin to be EPA administrator, on 56-42 vote

 

Takeaways from first of RFK Jr.'s two confirmation hearings to be health secretary

 

Justice Department drops criminal proceedings against Trump co-defendants Nuata, Oliveira in classified documents case

 

Former New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years in federal bribery, corruption case

 

Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle lawsuit with Trump, who said it 'censored' his social media account after Jan. 6

 

Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged, calling inflation still 'somewhat elevated'

 

AP: Amid conservative-media enthusiasm for Trump's actions, Murdoch-owned WSJ has editorialized against some of them

 

Scientists create implantable patches composed of beating heart muscle to treat heart failure

Trump’s funding freeze, federal employee resignation offer

Let’s start this morning with deep breathing to calm our nervous systems. Here is a guide to 4-7-8 breathing from the Cleveland Clinic. (I personally find this very helpful.)

 

On Tuesday, “Democratic and Republican leaders alike voiced concern about the pause in federal dollars ‘creating chaos’ and ‘jeopardizing the financial stability’ of their states, says The New York Times.

 

For example, Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a conservative Republican and Trump ally, asked the Trump administration in a joint statement with top state officials, “to develop a responsible runway to untangle us from any unnecessary and egregious policies without jeopardizing the financial stability of the state.”

 

Then U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan blocked the funding freeze minutes before it was scheduled to take effect, says The Associated Press. The administrative stay was prompted by a lawsuit brought by nonprofit groups that receive federal money.

 

And minutes after that, Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit seeking to block and permanently prevent the administration from cutting off federal funding, AP says.

 

The freeze “appears to plant the seeds of a potential Supreme Court fight over how much power a president has to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated, a tactic that lawmakers sharply curtailed under President Richard Nixon,” says a separate Times article.

 

Meanwhile, federal employees received an email Tuesday offering them a “deferred resignation program.” The details don’t seem very clear, and employees only have until Feb. 6 to accept the offer. 

 

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement: “The number of civil servants hasn’t meaningfully changed since 1970, but there are more Americans than ever who rely on government services. Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government. This offer should not be viewed as voluntary. Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”

Also in the news

As U.S. shutdown of foreign aid hits worldwide, Rubio adds more exemptions

Trump order aims to end federal support for gender transitions for people under 19

 

Senate confirms former Rep. Sean Duffy for Transportation secretary, on 77-22 vote

 

Video of JFK daughter Caroline reading her letter urging senators to reject nomination of her cousin RFK Jr.

 

KFF: The ‘Shkreli Awards’ for dysfunction, profiteering in health care

Elections lawyer Marc Elias on what ‘we can all do to protect democracy’

As President Trump “floods the zone” with “too much news,” as the Columbia Journalism Review puts it, I’m continuing to spend huge amounts of time trying to sort out what’s real from what are empty threats, or whatever. 

 

Another request of you, dear readers: Please send me items you come across on lawsuits being filed in response to executive orders as well as on ways citizens can help those who are being harmed by the new administration’s policies.

 

Meanwhile, here, from Marc Elias, who’s credited with supervising many of the court cases in response to Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, are suggestions of what citizens can do to protect democracy now. 

Also in the news

BBC News explainer of fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo

 

China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot fuels debate over economic, geopolitical competition between U.S., China in AI tech

 

Trump signs orders to remove DEI from the military, reinstate troops who refused coronavirus vaccines, on trans issues

 

Trump budget office orders all federal agencies to temporarily block disbursement of grants, loans

 

Trump administration puts senior aid officials on leave, following 90-day pause on foreign aid

 

Justice Department fires lawyers who worked on criminal prosecutions of Trump

 

Scott Bessent confirmed as Treasury secretary, on 68-29 vote

 

Supreme Court leaves in place Mississippi voting ban on people convicted of some crimes

Google Maps renaming 'Gulf of Mexico' 'Gulf of America' for U.S. users, leave it as is in Mexico, use both in rest of world

Trump’s impacts on foreign aid, federal workers

Thank you so much to the readers who’ve responded to my request for news on what’s actually happening as a result of the president’s actions so far. Please keep it up!

 

Most of the detailed information I’m getting is about federal workers, but there’s also this, from The Associated Press: 

 

The State Department on Friday ordered a freeze on new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance, making exceptions for emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt.

 

The United States spends more on global foreign aid than any other country, about $60 billion in 2023, roughly 1 percent of the U.S. budget, AP says.

 

The Brookings Institution published an article in 2019 on myths we Americans have about foreign aid, including that it’s about 25 percent of the federal budget, that other countries don’t do their share. 

 

To provide some context, in 2023 Americans spent $147 billion on our pets, according to the American Pet Products Association.

 

Turning to federal workers, an AP article details “intense loyalty tests” facing job-seekers who hope to join the Trump administration.

 

A New York Times article discusses the effects on current federal workers of the closing of diversity programs in agencies, stripping of civil service protection from some federal workers, and an end to remote work. Federal job offers are being rescinded.

 

If you’re a federal worker, the Times wants to hear from how the administration’s new policies affect you. 

 

Donald Kettl, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland who studies the civil service, says there’s widespread consensus among experts that the civil service needs changes.

“It’s too hard to hire, it’s too tough to fire, and there’s too little match between the civil service system and the capacity government needs to handle 21st-century challenges,” he says.

But he says many of the Trump administration’s proposed changes would be counterproductive. “They’re focused much more on shifting the balance of power than they are on improving the results of government,” he says.

 

I just want to say that I’ve been in Washington for decades, and it’s been a privilege to interact with workers at the various agencies, who in my observation work hard to improve the lives of people in this country and everywhere else.