| He listed a five priority issues — securing fair pay, protecting retirement benefits, preserving health care benefits, safeguarding workplace fairness and achieving agency missions. Saving jobs is not on the list, but it is a very real concern among workers and their organizations. They know Trump cannot cut $54 billion from domestic programs without putting federal jobs at risk. “It’s a double whammy for us,” said Candis Cardenas, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee in Dallas. Like others at the conference, she spoke in her capacity as a union member. “We are anticipating further layoffs because of these cuts.” Over the last few years, the IRS was the target of punitive budget reductions by Republicans angry over agency misdeeds. About 17,000 IRS jobs have been eliminated since 2010, NTEU said. The Trump administration plans a 14 percent IRS cut, The New York Times reported. How can federal employees “adequately or effectively serve our taxpayers if you cut us down at the knees and you say we’re not valuable?” asked Nicholas Pegues, a Treasury Department employee and NTEU member from St. Louis. Pegues and NTEU members were quick to note the folly of cutting the nation’s breadwinner. “The IRS collects 93 percent of our nation’s revenue,” Reardon said. “You cannot increase defense spending and cut IRS funding at the same time. It does not add up.” It does if you take an ax to the workforce and agency programs. “Remember, the $54 billion cut proposed by the administration is not savings for the taxpayer: It simply shifts the money, dollar-for-dollar, to an increase in military spending,” Reardon said. “These across-the-board cuts do not reduce the deficit and are so deep as to make government less efficient, not more.” That is a big worry. “When I see all of these cuts,” he added at a press briefing, “I fear a government that can no longer work effectively for the American people.” Read more: [White House eyes plan to cut EPA staff by one-fifth, eliminating key programs] [Trump’s budget plan brings uncertainty, layoff fears] [IRS commissioner describes bleak picture for underfunded agency] | 