Swamp Creatures Will Fight the Reckoning

For however long the government shutdown lasts, 750,000 federal employees will have to do without paychecks.

Meanwhile, Congress, those noble guardians of our Republic, will continue getting paid. We can rest assured that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will still be able to put food on the table.

Here in Maryland, the shutdown is a big deal. Our state is home to 60 federal agency buildings and 14 military installations.

The federal government pumps a massive $150 billion per year into Maryland’s economy.

And right now, government workers are scared. I know because they’re my friends and neighbors.

They’re nervous because the Trump administration has threatened to permanently slash the federal workforce if a government shutdown went into effect. And now it has.

Last week the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo instructing federal agencies to prepare for permanent job cuts.

From the WSJ:

The OMB memo instructs agencies to design reduction-in-force plans for employees who work for programs that have no current funding and have no outside funding source, and that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” This would be in addition to any temporary furloughs that happen during a government shutdown.

The President also stated, “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want and they’d be Democrat things.”

Government Work Ethic

Being close to Washington D.C., I’ve known a lot of federal workers. In the early 2010s I knew a bunch who worked at the Department of Labor.

Talk about an agency with an ironic name… Apparently almost nobody did any work at the Dept of Labor. Employees ran eBay businesses out of their cubicles and slacked off all day.

And in some ways, plain old waste is the least of our worries. Other agencies have been captured by the industries they regulate or special interests. Those are actively harming the country, while wasting our tax dollars.

Of course, there are productive people within the federal government. I know a few of them. They’re just a small minority.

Eventually, eliminating entire agencies will be necessary. Or at least cutting them back to bare bones. Our debt and deficit situation guarantees it.

But are we there yet?

Will They Slash?

The question is: will Trump and the GOP follow through on their threats to permanently slash swaths of government workers?

Perhaps, but some skepticism is warranted here. We saw the brutal time Elon Musk and his DOGE initiative had slashing government spending.

The swamp is deep and powerful, and if you try to drain it, the creatures who call it home will fight back.

On Polymarket, a prediction market where traders can bet on almost any outcome, traders are betting the shutdown will only last about 2 weeks.

There’s a good chance that only a token number of federal positions will be slashed, and we’ll be back to the status quo within a few weeks.

A Preview of What’s to Come

Eventually, a true reckoning will arrive. The American people and our government will give in to the reality that we’re living well beyond our means.

We’ll get serious about slashing spending and waste. It will be a brutally difficult period as the country goes through gravy train withdrawal.

But that day is not today. For now, the best we can hope for is that President Trump is successful in convincing some government employees to retire early, and perhaps the elimination of a few thousand positions.

That would be a decent start. But it’s only a hint of what’s coming down the road.

The true reckoning is still a ways off. And until then, it will mostly be business as usual. How will we pay for continued reckless government spending until the reckoning arrives? The old fashioned way, of course. Printing money and monetizing debt.

The country isn’t yet ready to go through the difficult transformation that lies ahead.

Unlike previous Presidents, Trump at least is attempting to initiate large-scale reforms. But it’s going to be rough sledding.

The DC swamp is its own world, with its own rules. The deep state still wields immense power, and until that changes, our country’s slow deterioration will continue.