Former DOGE engineer on his experience working for the cost-cutting unit

[KPN]

15. Oh he did. Well, to be accurate, he said he did. I was there. It's called federal pay grades. He reduced

them under the moniker of "grade bulge reduction" to -- snicker, snicker -- put federal pay levels in line with the private sector. (The Graves Commission.)

He also postponed 4 consecutive fed employee annual COLAs by 3 months each, equaling in effect the elimination of one year's COLA completely -- during the period that encompassed some of the highest annual inflation rates in my lifetime. Oh, and routinely froze federal hiring -- thereby shrinking the overall workforce and effectively forcing federal employees to do more with and for less.

This is when I actually started paying much greater attention specifically to how Democrats responded to the Republican economic agenda, and first found myself beginning to feel disappointed as well as somewhat disillusioned by the results. As a party, we've needed to do better ever since not just for the federal workforce but working Americans overall.