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Several workers at a Birmingham Social Security office were fired this week by Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency,” according to Congresswoman Terri Sewell, who labeled the firings “unjust.”
Sewell also blasted the actions of Musk, and the acquiescence of Trump, saying in an interview on the Alabama Politics This Week podcast that the mass firings had created “chaos that will only hurt good people.”
“You know, Bill Clinton, when he took office, he made a lot of cuts and saved a lot of money, but he did so carefully,” Sewell said. “He took six months. He asked for various agencies to send him proposals and look for savings. And only after reviewing things carefully did he make the cuts. That’s the proper way. What’s happening now – this slash and burn and going in with a sledgehammer, turning off the spigot to see what happens – that’s so harmful. It’s hurting real people.”
Sewell also questioned Musk’s authority to make many of the cuts and asked how her Republican colleagues could possibly justify sitting back and watching this all take place.
“No one voted for Elon Musk. No one properly appointed him. He was not confirmed by the Senate,” Sewell said. “But he’s tearing apart our government without oversight. When will this stop? People are scared over what they’re seeing. My phones are ringing off the hook, so I know the phones in these Republicans’ offices must be.”
There is little doubt about that.
Republicans from coast to coast have been getting an earful from constituents, including a large portion of voters who say they supported them and President Donald Trump in the last election, over the way Musk and his DOGE team have handled – or bungled – their slash-and-burn efforts to allegedly trim waste from the federal government.
So far the cuts have impacted farmers and medical research institutions, low-income food programs and humanitarian aid abroad – cuts that have drawn the ire of voters. Despite grand claims of savings and anti-fraud efforts, Musk’s team has yet to publicly identify actual fraud and have been caught repeatedly overstating the savings of their cuts and/or misrepresenting, or misunderstanding, the programs, agencies and employees being cut.
On Tuesday evening, the New York Times and other outlets reported that DOGE has now deleted references to its five biggest “savings,” which had previously been posted to the agency’s “wall of receipts.” The deletions come after numerous media outlets pointed out that the alleged savings were nonexistent.
In the meantime, though, DOGE and Musk have cavalierly fired and placed on leave thousands of government employees – some of them illegally – and raised questions about what legal authority Musk and his team have to make the personnel cuts. Sewell said she and other Democrats are now actively encouraging the employees who feel they were wrongly terminated to take legal action.
“I think many of them have a very strong case,” Sewell said. “Regardless, the way these people have been treated is simply unacceptable. These are not bad people. These were people who were rightfully hired to government positions and have served the people. They deserve respect and dignity.”
