By George Tristan | Guest Columnist, Rocky Mountain Voice
In November 2002, I was informed I would be terminated from a well-paying position at Hewlett-Packard. The HP layoffs (approximately 30,000 employees) were prompted by volatile industry turmoil (Dotcom bust) and a merger with Compaq. The 10 years of employment at HP were some of the very best of my career. HP, at that time, was the darling of the Silicon Valley empire, as the Palo Alto garage where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started the fledgling company is a California landmark and considered by many the birthplace of the high-tech industry.
This dramatic upheaval in the telecommunications industry resulted in a labor market flooded with unemployed IT professionals. With few options, I accepted a management position in the retail industry and a subsequent significant reduction in salary.
Albeit a challenging time in my life, I did not possess anger, resentment, or bitterness towards HP CEO Carly Fiorina. My termination was not immoral or malicious; it was merely a business management decision for the betterment of the company. Thankfully, I currently have a great job as an aerospace engineer; however, it took many years of hard work to regain a commensurate status and income on par with my Hewlett-Packard job.
The terminations currently occurring in the federal workforce are not all that different from what I experienced during the Dotcom bust. Admittedly, these are difficult times for those that have been affected. I am genuinely sympathetic to their dilemma, having “been there, done that.” Obviously, it’s time to update the LinkedIn profile and start “hitting the streets,” as they used to say.
In Washington DC, fraud, waste, and abuse has long been an anathema. The President, as the country’s chief executive officer, has a constitutional duty to guard the nation’s national security and financial security.
During President Clinton’s time in office, he tasked VP Gore with establishing the “National Performance Review” (NPR) initiative, a cornerstone of the Clinton administration’s domestic policy aimed at making government more efficient, cost-effective, and responsive to taxpayers. Elaine Kamarck, a key NPR official, testified that 426,200 federal jobs were eliminated between 1993 and 2000.
President Obama branded his effort to tackle government inefficiency as the “Campaign to Cut Waste,” launched in June 2011 via Executive Order 13576. Obama’s EO established the “Government Accountability and Transparency Board” (GATB), which Earl Devaney chaired. Per the Office of Personnel Management and Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of government job losses during Obama’s tenure was approximately 700,000.
The actions of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are being unfairly politicized by the Left, with the intent of purposefully undermining the goals and objectives of the Trump administration.
President Trump was correct when he said at the March 4th joint session of Congress that there is nothing he can say [do] that would be welcomed by the Democrats. Many members of Congress that night demonstrated that they are fully committed to resisting and obstructing any policy initiative coming out of this administration. Democrats could not even muster the moral clarity to stand and applaud a boy who survived 13 brain cancer surgeries or a mother who lost her daughter in a savage rape and murder by an illegal migrant.
Taxpayers expect that their hard-earned money is spent wisely and responsibly. DOGE has identified numerous irresponsible and, in some cases, potentially illegal disbursements. Here are the receipts.
President Trump is committed to growing the economy and lowering taxes for everyone. His aggressive economic agenda includes the cost-cutting measures of DOGE and job creation initiatives through reciprocal tariff policies.
The United States government is bloated; it consistently runs an annual deficit, and the National Debt ledger is approaching 37 trillion dollars.
Economic experts agree that if U.S. government spending continues at these levels, catastrophic consequences may result in U.S. financial security, such as lowered credit ratings, loss of the U.S. dollar as the international exchange standard, and even insolvency. Responsible government spending is not a Republican or Democrat issue; rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse in Washington, D.C., is a matter every taxpayer should defend and support.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.