About 72-73% of OSHA is furloughed.  If this was made permanent there is no reason to think it would function at all moving forward.  All remaining staff would have to work 7 days week just to meet the basic legal requirements of addressing employee reports of unsafe work environments.

  Medicare Part B telehealth is suspended.  54% of those beneficiaries use telehealth.  This reduces crowded waiting rooms and longer commutes for the elderly.  Permanent shutdown would reduce care efficiency as even a basic blood pressure consult would require in-person addressing of care.  

 AHCAH or Acute hospital care at home would be permanently suspended.  All of those in treatment in the comfort of their homes would have to return to physical medical care facilities.  This program is an ideal example of the future of efficient medical care.  Instead we would return to months-out scheduling and lengthy waiting-room congestion instead of modern medical care at home.

 NFIP - National Flood Insurance Program would never be able to take on new clients, all "non essential" staff are responsible for the processing.  In order to process new clients the current staff would have to double-specialize and be on-site as well as in-office.  Hydrology experts would have to double as data-entry clerks, reducing efficiency.

 All military contracts would be permanently suspended as the awards staff, processing and payroll are all non-essential staff.  R&D would be redirected to DARPA employees only.  I can't begin to explain how fast out military would go downhill if the private sector had no way to engage.  

 Or current staff would have to double-shift as clerical, awards management, auditing and processing duties.  So along with their military service in the field they would also have to process their own payroll, insurance, accounts, and also contractors for instance.

I have worked for two companies that have been purchased and then went through major restructuring, where half of the employees were cut, and the organization that was purchased still functioned independently with the exception of senior management to report to.

 One of the problems I have with Federal RIF versus private sector is the average human does not hire onto a private sector job with a contract to work X-amount of years in exchange for a pension/IRA/continued healthcare, with an entire legal structure protecting it.  Union protections are more of a problem than anything.  It should be easier to fire a Federal employee for performance reasons, but that has more to do with internal politics than lazy workers.  Lazy workers are in every job.

 Also a lot of these terminations are political, not performance based (which is why mass layoffs all said "performance" even if they never had a review).  A government employee that did their job well, but happened to do it for a program Trump does not like - should not end their career.  

 A lot of people are losing jobs just because they file paperwork for a "Democrat" program.  They didn't choose to file paperwork for the fun of filing paperwork, or for "Democrats" they did it because of the benefits associated with a Federal retirement.


Obviously, you can’t put 50% across the board that’s not what I was suggesting but it would not surprise me if we could easily operate the US government with 30% fewer employees.

 I think 30% is too high.  I might have agreed before I saw the DOGE numbers, and the subsequent manipulation of those numbers as they pulled back.  They promised 15% and couldn't get close which I found surprising.  There's a reason they input data as dollars saved an not jobs removed.