Trump’s freeze: Hold him accountable for campaign promises

I remember waiting for the phone call last November, looking out of the window of the old Alcoa building in Downtown Pittsburgh. I was told that it would come around 2 p.m. and that I should be prepared to discuss intelligence, security, the Middle East and Russia.

“Unknown,” read the caller ID when the phone finally rang. I was being interviewed for a position with the CIA as an analytic intern — a salaried, recurring position that would probably lead to a lifelong career with the agency.

I was ultimately unable to accept the position for personal reasons, but the experience did give me insight into the grueling interview and vetting process involved in receiving a top-secret clearance — including a phone interview, personality and quantitative reasoning assessments, background checks and polygraph tests.

So I was able to empathize when a Facebook friend of mine posted about a similar situation. A job she applied for — presumably going through the same rigorous steps that I had — was cancelled.

She’d been pursuing a similar government internship and was only days away from hearing about it when, on Jan. 23, she received an email saying the job had been cancelled. At first she was confused, but the situation was quickly clarified once the news broke of President Trump’s Jan. 22 presidential memorandum enacting a 90-day federal hiring freeze on civilian employees “across the board in the executive branch.”

Internships and full-time jobs like these provide work to many qualified individuals. But as a result of Trump’s freeze, many are now unfilled. The freeze is estimated to affect between 10,000 to 20,000 people who will either have to forgo their plans to work in the federal government or wait to get in. The number is relatively small when compared to the 4 million people the federal government already employs, but the long-term impacts of Trump shrinking the government will influence jobs in America the most.

More importantly, the action is contrary to one of his central campaign promises of lowering unemployment, and he must be held accountable.

Because of the freeze, executive agencies were directed to fill positions using their Excepted Service authorities rather than hire new civilians. Excepted Service positions are jobs where federal employees can freely transfer without undergoing a vigorous hiring evaluation. This was likely the justification for the closure of my acquaintance’s potential position — the opening was filled through the Department of Homeland Security’s Excepted Service authority rather than bringing in new workers.

Presidential memorandums haven’t been hard to come by so far in the Trump era. The president signed another memo on Jan. 24, this time regarding construction of the heavily protested Dakota Access Pipeline. The memo directs that the Secretary of the Army will be responsible for overseeing the completion of the pipeline and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be responsible for its construction.

But these two memos seem to conflict when we consider the roles that federal employees will play in the pipeline’s construction. The day that the hiring freeze was announced, the EPA was instructed to temporarily suspend all contracts and grant awards. Also, the Army Corps of Engineers confirmed on Jan. 26 that they are unable to hire new workers. The EPA is responsible for issuing the environmental guidelines for the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the construction of DAPL. This means either the pipeline will be built without proper consideration for the environment, by overworked employees or it simply won’t be completed.

Because of the memo freezing new hires, the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline will only create 90 new jobs. Regardless of the environmental and ethical implications of these projects, the freeze contradicts Trump’s stated purpose of bringing jobs back to the United States.

Many of his other projects are also incompatible with increased employment — like the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which will result in nearly three million jobs lost. If President Trump truly wishes to lower unemployment, he should cease the federal hiring freeze and seek out construction projects that will actually bring jobs to the United States.

Instead of the misguided policies he’s followed so far, he could turn to education and focus on establishing a lower student-to-teacher ratio by funding schools to hiring more teachers. Or, considering the number of tweets that Trump sends from his private account, he could establish social media regulatory positions to help him raise his abysmal approval ratings. He could redirect funds from our overfunded military in order to create construction jobs fixing our nation’s infrastructure. Or, given that nearly everybody complains about wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles, he could use funds secured by his ‘bold, ambitious, [and] forward looking’ economic plan to hire more clerks.

But none of this seems to be the new President’s plan. Instead of focusing on providing jobs to citizens like my classmate or the millions who would be affected by a repeal of the ACA, he seems determined to wage wars on the media, stage primetime announcements for routine appointments and heap lavish, outlandish praise on those who support him.

When I first applied for the CIA, it never occurred to me I might be working for someone like President Trump. And as the new president addressed the CIA the day after the inauguration, I tried to imagine myself as an intern in the crowd. I think I would have been disappointed in and borderline disgusted by his choice to discuss such trivial matters as attacking the media and praising himself at such a revered location. In hindsight, I’m glad I wasn’t able to accept the position because of my many qualms with our new leader.

But not everyone can afford to take an ideological stance against working for the government for the next four years. We must take action, combatting alternative facts at every turn with data and well-reasoned thought. We must hold those who represent us accountable for the promises that they make. We must ensure that we the people can work and that our president reverses his hiring freeze to lead by example.

And we must do so together — the only way to live a day in Trump’s America.

Write to Christian at cjs197@pitt.edu.