When DOGE leader Elon Musk had an email sent to millions of federal employees on Saturday asking them “What did you get done this week?” — with the warning that failure to reply to the email would be tantamount to a resignation — one Republican asked the world’s richest man to show compassion.
U.S. Senator John Curtis (R-UT) said that while he supported the overall goal of DOGE, he added: “If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s like, please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages.”
MAGA advocate and U.S. Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA) also expressed compassion on X, writing to those federal workers who received the email: “I’m a compassionate man. I know loss and struggle, I understand financial hardship, I know what it is to face eviction, I know hunger, I’ve lived through despair. So, to the scores of thousands of FedGov employees who are facing unemployment because your elected officials have, for decades, grown the Federal bureaucracies into corrupt, bloated, weaponized devourers of America’s treasure and oppressors of American freedom… I say to you that I feel your pain and I wish you well, but your job was no more important than the carpenter, the machinist, the welder, the cop, the trucker, the warehouse worker, the salesman, the waitress, the heavy equipment operator… every American who lives down the street from you whose job has not been insulated from the real world.
“Our federal government bureaucracies are literally cannibalizing our nation, eating our children’s future. MAGA Republicans are going to bring our federal government back into sustainability. If you’ve lost your job, I’m sorry for your struggle. Pick yourself up, all of us will give you a hand. We’re all Americans, join us in saving our beloved Republic.”
Many MAGA followers replied to Higgins’s post with a refusal to show compassion — “These people were offered 8 months full pay and benefits. I have little sympathy” — while others are calling out Higgins for hypocrisy.
As one replied: “Now, get rid of all pensions paid by the taxpayers. This includes Congress. Your retirement is not more important than mine, the carpenter, the truckers and all other workers you mentioned. Why should taxpayers pay for your pensions and healthcare? Use the programs that Congress forces on us. Social Security and Medicare switch to 401k plans like everyone else in the real world. Otherwise you are being hypocritical.”
[NOTE: Social Security is ostensibly funded by the taxpayers who receive benefits based on what they paid into the program. It is designed to function as a retirement plan with the goal of eliminating the potential chaos — and high cost — of having an elderly population with no income. Conservative critics, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, contend it “redistributes income from lower to higher income persons.”]
Now, get rid of all pensions paid by the taxpayers. This includes Congress. Your retirement is not more important than mine, the carpenter, the truckers and all other workers you mentioned. Why should taxpayers pay for your pensions and healthcare? Use the programs that Congress…
— LilRascal (@rascal113646) February 23, 2025
Note: According to the Congressional Research Service, lawmakers who participated in the congressional pension system are vested after five years of service. A pension is available to members 62 years of age with 5 years of service; 50 years or older with 20 years of service; or 25 years of service at any age.
Republican lawmakers including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have said pensions for members of Congress is an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.
