USDA fired officials working on bird flu, now trying to rehire them

Privatization, Consulting, and “Small Government”

• Several comments link the USDA fiasco to a broader pattern: governments fire public servants to “save money” and then rehire the same people through consulting firms at far higher cost.
• Examples cited: Australian public service, privatized buses, Chicago’s parking meters, UK rail.
• Net effect described: taxpayers pay more, core workers often earn less, and politically connected intermediaries extract rents and offer cushy post‑political jobs.
• This is framed as the real meaning of “small government / big business” and “starve the beast”: deliberately degrading capacity so programs can later be called failures.

US Conservatism, Polarization, and Extremism

• Many see current US conservatives as unusually extreme compared to other developed countries, with a weak sense of social contract.
• Strong disagreement over “both sides are extremist”: several argue right‑wing radicalization is vast while left “extremists” are mostly marginal online actors without power; centrists who insist on symmetry are criticized.
• Others warn that increasing extremism on either side is dangerous and that in‑group dynamics resemble cult behavior.
• Sub‑threads dive into “woke,” DEI, and LGBT issues, with polls cited to show public and even Democratic opinion is more divided than activists suggest.

Legality, Separation of Powers, and Mass Firings

• Anger that Republicans privately warned about dangerous cuts (e.g., nuclear inspectors, bird flu) but refused public confrontation.
• Extended debate over whether the president can unilaterally fire executive‑branch staff and effectively neuter congressionally created agencies by not staffing them.
• Some argue Article II implies broad firing power and predict a Supreme Court decision cementing this; others counter that this would gut Congress’s power of the purse and statutory mandates, making “legal” synonymous with whatever a captured Court allows.

Administrative Chaos and Management Style

• Several see a pattern of indiscriminate, centrally driven firings (via OMB) targeting categories like probationary employees, not mission‑critical analysis.
• The USDA and nuclear‑safety episodes are compared to Musk’s Twitter layoffs and other corporate stories: “pull plugs and see what breaks,” then scramble to rehire at higher cost—often losing the best people permanently.

Value of “Inefficiency” and Risk

• What is labeled government “inefficiency” is reframed by some as necessary complexity, redundancy, and safety in domains like nuclear regulation and pandemic response.
• Commenters note people habitually underestimate risk and resent paying for safety until disaster strikes, at which point costs skyrocket.

Musk, Conflict of Interest, and Hypocrisy

• Multiple threads question Musk’s simultaneous role in DOGE and as CEO of several firms subject to federal oversight, calling it a blatant conflict of interest.
• His insistence on harsh in‑office expectations while visibly devoting time to politics is called hypocritical; defenders point to his past corporate success and argue he can “multitask.”
• Some argue his moves, especially at X, are driven more by ideology (empowering far‑right discourse, removing prior moderation limits) than by profit.