Years ago, I worked at US Joint Forces Command before it was dismantled by the “machine.” People said that it was “wasteful”, and some declared that the services were already “joint” and didn’t need any help there. Well, most of that was bologna. Getting rid of the command was meant to save money. That is what CAPE advised and what it was supposed to do. Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) look it up if you’d like. HOWEVER,
Look at the DoD budget over history. Yes, we are in record high territory but if you ask most government people, they’d tell you they do NOT have enough money and resources to do the work they need to do.
Some reasons why:
- We do not run the government with a strong accountability system designed to make fast and reactionary decisions in a reasonable timeframe.
- We prepare meetings, briefs, emails and messages for people with a design framework meant for 4th – 5th grade intelligence.
- We don’t think and,
- we don’t hold people accountable.
- We don’t release people, we move them. Don’t get me wrong, if someone did something covered under an obvious federal law, they might be able to do something about it, think discriminatory etc. However, people could ruin a DoD program and spend millions of dollars or waste millions of dollars and never be held accountable. Unfortunately, they may remain in a position to damage the DoD for a very long time.
There is very little accountability and further, there is very little that senior leadership can do at the moment because for all the things they can do, they are hamstrung. That is the truth.
Let me put this into perspective for you in real life terms. You could be moved or taken out of a role for looking at someone the wrong way, but you can cause millions of dollars of damage, hurt our warfighter and the Amercian people, waste money and stay in your job while the building burns down, and NOTHING happens. People can report you; you can even raise concerns in a public forum, and NOTHING happens. #TRUTH
There is a ton of stupidity in the government.
Fire! Fire! Fire! There’s a Bravo class fire in compartment 3-130-0-E. Metal is melting, and people are in trouble. “Did you fill out the DoD 324.0001 PDF that you can’t access online because all the power is out”?
Bad things happen, stupid things happen, and we just traipse along without a care in the world.
Think about how much money is spent on cyber security. I think cyber is one of the biggest lies ever told to the public. https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2024/budget_justification/pdfs/01_Operation_and_Maintenance/O_M_VOL_1_PART_1/CYBERCOM_OP-5.pdf?form=MG0AV3
Billions of dollars and I mean BILLIONS but where is the value add? I’d challenge anyone to tell us what the risk management framework has done for us? What catastrophic issue did we avoid or protect ourselves from? In fact, most of the work force doesn’t even understand cyber security. They pass training that tells them not to click the link in an email. DUMB.
On top of this, we don’t have centralized IT cost accounting. No one knows who is spending money and what value is derived. We talk about things like “business”, but the DoD isn’t a business, it is a spend factory. You get money and the measure of success is how much you spend, how quickly and how well you did spending it. HOORAY!!!!! We spents all our monies!!! YaY for the AM3rica peoplez yall!
Seriously. Now people are worried about this thing called Schedule F.
I call it “Schedule FINALLY” because it seems that we have a unique opportunity to hold people accountable. Let me be clear with you all, there are good, smart, caring and passionate people in the DoD that not only mean well but are exceptionally effective. From where I stand, they are rare. The DoD and the greater Federal government have a disease of ineffective process and dumbassery that must be dealt with. The real world, nature, life has no opinion or position to debate. A hurricane doesn’t have time for your paperwork drill. DO YOUR JOB! Many people don’t do their jobs and for the ones that do, they suffer in pain and misery, driven by passion and purpose, they trudge on.
Do you know what Schedule F is?
Schedule F refers to a classification of federal employees in the United States. Introduced in 2020, Schedule F aims to reclassify certain government positions, particularly those involved in policy-making or advising, from traditional civil service protections to a new category with fewer protections.
Key Features
- At-will employment: Employees can be fired without cause.
- No appeals: Limited or no appeals process for terminations.
- No union representation: Schedule F employees may not be represented by unions.
- Performance-based evaluations: Evaluations focus on performance rather than seniority.
Goals and Controversies
Goals
- Increase accountability: Hold employees accountable for performance.
- Improve efficiency: Streamline personnel management.
Controversies
- Politicization: Concerns about partisan influence in hiring and firing.
- Loss of expertise: Experienced employees may be let go.
- Undermining civil service: Eroding protections and job security.
From FNN Summarized
People concerned with the federal workforce and government operations are wondering if former President Donald Trump would bring back Schedule F if he returns to office. Schedule F was his plan to turn a chunk of senior career civil service employees into essentially political appointees. Washington attorney George Chuzi expressed his concerns in an interview with Tom Temin on The Federal Drive.
Chuzi highlighted that Project 2025, a plan involving several executive orders from the Trump administration, explicitly states the intention to reintroduce Schedule F. Despite Trump’s campaign distancing itself from Project 2025, Chuzi remains skeptical due to the involvement of numerous former Trump officials in the project.
If Schedule F were reinstated, it could affect up to 15,000 federal career civil servants, primarily GS-13 through GS-15 employees. Chuzi argues that this move threatens the nonpartisan nature of the federal civil service, which has been in place since the 1880s to ensure stability and impartiality in government operations.
The discussion also touched on the broader implications of executive orders and the balance of power between the executive branch and other government entities. Chuzi emphasized the importance of a nonpartisan civil service in maintaining checks and balances within the government. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2024/10/how-bad-would-schedule-f-be-anyway/
https://kettering.org/the-schedule-f-threat-to-democracy-a-project-2025-explainer
Well, regardless of Project 2025, the government needs to have accountability, audit and provide the senior leadership with mechanisms and tools to exercise their best judgement on their people and the outcomes. If we are meant to run the DoD like we do a business, we need to allow decision makers to make decisions. We don’t.. I’ll say it again for clarity, even the SMARTEST people in the DoD with the best and coolest titles are bound by an invisible force which restricts them from making decisions. Once confronted with this force, they have to move their concerns up the chain of command into an eventually abyss of “nevamakadecision” land.
I welcome the opportunity for change. If we are going to stop the madness of literal lunacy, we need to start with the letter “A” in the alphabet for ACCOUNTABILITY.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of any organization or entity. All information provided is for informational purposes only. References to sources are included for context and should be reviewed independently.
BTW, Happy Sunday and for my fellow Veterans.. THIS IS WHAT WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!