11/18/2024
Honored to have been interviewed by the Dutch National News regarding the DC real estate market and how the new administration could affect our city.
https://nos.nl/collectie/13980/artikel/2544985-washington-kleurt-republikeins-rood-ambtenaren-vrezen-voor-hun-baan
Washington turns Republican red, officials fear for their jobs
Indy Scholtens - editor in Washington
In Washington DC, the dismay is palpable. The political wind in the city, where more than 92 percent voted Democratic, has changed. Donald Trump not only won the election, but has also gained a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Many civil servants fear for their future. The incoming president has announced that he wants to overhaul the bureaucracy in the capital.
"I can already sense that many civil servants I work with are nervous about whether they will be able to keep their jobs under Trump," said Silvana Dias. "Many are already looking for other work."
Dias is a luxury real estate agent in Washington. She is in the middle of selling a house in a central part of the city. The street is still adorned with LGBT flags and the blue and white "Harris-Walz" signs still hang in the windows.
Since the Nov. 5 election, Dias has fielded calls from both current Biden administration officials looking to sell their homes and future Trump administration staffers preparing to move to the city.
It is normal for civil servants to come and go with the change of power: a president appoints about 4,000 of his own civil servants. That could change if Trump reinstates the so-called Schedule F , a provision that removes employment protections for tens of thousands of civil servants. Critics say that is a way to replace critical civil servants with loyalists.
"It's not so much that he's going to fire all the civil servants, but he's going to reclassify civil servants so that it's easier to fire them," said Janos Szani, president of the Republican Student Club in Washington, D.C., and a former Trump campaigner. Szani is excited about the prospect of a red-colored White House and Congress and an influx of Republicans into the city.
"Most of the officials are Democrats, and they actively worked against Trump to make his policies possible in 2016," the young Republican says. "I think we're bringing much-needed change, a new perspective."
At the end of Trump’s first term in 2020, he tried to activate Schedule F, but it was quickly rolled back when Joe Biden won the election. The plan has not gone away four years later. “I think Trump still has a grudge against bureaucracy,” Szani says. “He’s more determined than ever to eradicate it.”
In an August interview, Trump said that government officials "will be held accountable" and are "corrupt people." Trump has appointed tech mogul Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy as advisers to promote efficiency within the government. The two are supposed to ensure that "two trillion dollars" are saved within the government.
Cory Bythrow, chief of staff for the National Civil Service Union, is preparing his members for a "fight." "People are nervous because we choose to take Donald Trump at his word when he says he's going to cut trillions of dollars from the government."
Bythrow believes the Trump administration is better prepared this time around than it was in its first term. They have more knowledge and majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and support from the Supreme Court. "They now know how policy works and they're not going to want to waste time," Bythrow said.
Trump also said earlier this year that he plans to move at least 100,000 government jobs out of Washington, DC. Of the two million government workers, about 20 percent work in and around the capital. In his previous administration, Trump moved the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado.
"It's extremely disruptive to move the headquarters of a government agency from Washington to another part of the country," Bythrow said. "And we expect that expertise will be lost and the personal lives of government officials will be disrupted."
Despite these threats, the civil servants' union is taking a combative stance. Bythrow emphasizes that his organization has not stood still in recent years. The union is considering legal action, is speaking out in the media and is urging civil servants to join a union. "It will be a tough task," Bythrow admits. "But we are ready to weather any storm."
Veel ambtenaren vrezen voor hun toekomst in de hoofdstad omdat aankomend president Trump heeft aangekondigd de bureaucratie op de schop te willen nemen.
