Elon Musk publicized the names of government employees he wants to cut. It’s terrifying federal workers

[u/Dustypigjut]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/27/business/elon-musk-government-employees-targets/index.html

[u/lyn73]

This story was also posted on Yahoo. I went to the comments....

Let me tell you the problem our country has.....

People are focusing on the wrong damn thing. Most of the comments I read were about the need to cut back, be more efficient, etc.

The problem obviously is that this man used his platform to publicize, harass, intimidate 4 government employees that did nothing to him/nothing to deserve what's probably coming to them (harassment, etc.). Elon will have the crazies after them...all because our open government laws have not caught up to technology (and its capabilities) and he has the power to use his platform to spread information.

People that work for the government 1. just want to do their job and get paid 2. might have decided this line of work because they wanted to help society.... They don't deserve that type of abuse. People who think they have the solutions to make the government more efficient usually have no clue as to what is going on and why.... These narcissistic pricks need to step back, shut up, learn and respect these people....

[u/Mrtorbear → u/lyn73]

I've been told off for being a government drone before - working from the inside to destroy the American people. All for being a government contractor. Y'all, I fuckin work for MEDICAID AND MEDICARE, aka dedicating the last decade of my life to getting my fellow Americans adequate health care. I am not the goddamn bad guy, but some people just assume government employees are part of some deep state.

[u/The_Lost_Jedi → u/Mrtorbear]

It's sort of like the foreign aid budget. It's a tiny trifling amount compared to what the government spends on stuff like social security/medicare/defense/etc, but too many people are utterly convinced it's some gigantic sum, like 20% or whatever.

[u/Panda_Satan → u/The_Lost_Jedi]

That's because a billion dollars is too hard for the average person to comprehend. Their brain can't tell the difference between incredibly large sums of money once you get to B.

You might as well be speaking in terms of infinity at that point. X is infinity dollars we give to Ukraine, and we spend Y infinity dollars on Social Security.

I'll admit I don't even know the whole budget by total. I know that we spend in the trillions of dollars every year, and the defense budget makes up some $850 billion of it, so I can discern between truly large sums of money and the government equivalent of pocket change being tossed to foreign aid.

Most people also don't understand why you'd want to send aid to other countries at all. I mean at a very basic level they are thinking "that money could eliminate hunger and homelessness". Sometimes the answer is disaster relief, others sovereign protection.

Like many things, the answers are nuanced and can't be summed up easily, but they feel scared and a simple solution that will save infinity dollars sounds like the right choice, so they cheer on the solution to claw back what is truly a drop in the bucket of the larger picture... All the while they themselves are the ones who have sacrificed their own rights, freedoms, healthcare, safety net, and so much more in the process.