Federal Purge Continues as 10,000 Federal Workers Get Pink Notice

As the purge of government workers moves forward by the Trump administration snd lawsuits fly from the New Mexico AG and others on rather Elon Musk has legal authority. This weekend over 10,000 workers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated in a drive that so far has largely but not exclusively targeted probationary employees in their first year on the job who have fewer employment protections at the Federal level. 

The firings, reported by Reuters and other major U.S. media outlets, are in addition to the roughly 75,000 workers who have taken a buyout that Trump and Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily, according to the White House. That equals about 3% of the 2.3 million person civilian workforce.Trump says the federal government is too bloated and too much money is lost to waste and fraud. The government has some $36 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for reform.

The U.S. Forest Service is working on firing around 3,400 recent hires, while the National Park Service is terminating about 1,000, yet to be confirmed.

This weekend it was announced Elon Musk was targeting the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service and is looking to fire thousands of workers next week, a move that could squeeze resources ahead of Americans' April 15, 2025 deadline to file personal income taxes.

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