Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday backed the Trump administration’s resolution to supply buyouts to federal employees who don’t plan to return to the workplace, telling reporters that “drastic times call for drastic measures.”
The transfer comes as President Trump has appeared to drastically cut back distant work for federal staff. Requested concerning the buyouts throughout a press convention on the Home GOP’s retreat in south Florida — and if taxpayers are comfy with scores of federal staff not working however receiving pay by way of the buyout — Johnson argued that federal staff have been receiving pay however not working for a while.
“They’ve been doing this for four years under the Biden administration,” Johnson mentioned. “They had full license, apparently, to not come to work. And it’s a terrible frustration for us and for the American people.”
“This is not like a private company. It should be that way, but it’s not,” he added. “The new president can’t come in and just walk into an agency and say you’re all fired, you know, which, that [would] probably be appropriate in some of these places. But he’s not allowed to do that under the law.”
The Speaker went on to say that Trump and his crew had been “thinking outside the box,” calling the buyouts “the right move.”
“How can we address this problem if we can’t fire people for lack of showing up for work? Well, let’s give them the option to take a parachute. You know, we don’t like that, but it’s better than the alternative of having people not work and stay on the payroll,” he added.
In a memo on Tuesday, the White Home provided buyouts to 2 million federal staff, guaranteeing them advantages and pay by way of September in the event that they resign by Feb. 6. The buyouts had been made accessible to all full-time federal staff besides army personnel, U.S. Postal Service employees and positions pertaining to immigration enforcement and nationwide safety.
The transfer got here after Trump, on his first day again in workplace, signed a memorandum directing all government department departments and businesses to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”
Trump has emphasised bringing federal employees again into the workplace, after distant work turned extra extensively used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats had been fast to criticize Trump’s buyout gives. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), for instance, referred to as it “bogus.”
“Trump is trying to scam federal workers into quitting their jobs with a bogus ‘buyout’ scheme—just like he’s stiffed contractors and workers his entire career,” he wrote on social platform X.
Johnson on Wednesday estimated that 5 p.c to 10 p.c of the federal workforce will settle for a buyout, calling that prospect “fantastic.”
“I hope they do. But if the estimate is, if 5 to 10 percent leave, you can save $100 billion for taxpayers just with that, that downsizing of the size and scope of government,” he mentioned.
“There will be other creative ideas on how to do this, but I think it’s the right move,” he added. “Is it frustrating? Yes. Should it not be that way? Yeah, I wish we didn’t have civil service laws that require that kind of action. You know, they need to be reformed. But the president is looking at the reality and the law and he’s trying to do everything within his power to make good on the promises and the demands of the American people, and it’s right.”
Emily Brooks contributed.
