47 Comments

It will be a great day for all Americans when she is dead. 🙏 Praying

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Who could vote for her?

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Answer: Low information voters, who comprise people who are too busy/disinterested to keep up with politics and those who are engaged but are siloed by the likes of MSNBC, CNN, the NYT and WaPo.

Unfortunately, between those two groups that's probably about 60 percent of the country.

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Yep. But I gotta admit that if Trump overcomes the election ‘fortifying’ and wins, I am hoping he enacts 92% turnover among the unelected bureaucracy.

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We need to pivot to a discussion about how the $35T national debt will make even Democrat objectives so far out of reach that even *they* will be forced to slash the government to salvage our economy, which is poised to enter what I call "Great Depression 2.0" (a Perfect Storm of historic debts, stagflation and commercial real estate crisis).

Years ago when the country was less divided by social/media, both Left-leaning and Right-leaning interests backed the documentary IOUSA, spearheaded by former Comptroller General David Walker, which flagged the impending insolvency of Social Security among other economic troubles associated with unsustainable debts/deficits.

Congress abandoned what was called "regular order" in the 1990s. Instead of debating the budget, they have adopted the lazy approach to appropriations via 4,000+ page omnibus bills that nobody fully reads/debates. Regardless of who wins the next election, if they don't return government to governance — instead of endless committee hearings and whatnot — the financial suicide we're committing as a country will occur that much faster.

The national debt MUST become an election issue. But even if the candidates largely ignore it, the next presidential administration will be forced to make cuts. There is no way to print our way out of this mess without ending up with wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread within the coming decade. This can can't be kicked down the road any further, and voters need to vote with this understanding top of mind.

It's almost quaint to consider how much worse that debt is today, some $35T with more spent servicing the interest than on national defense, Medicare, etc. And yet this is scarcely an issue in the campaign despite the fact that China, among others, are buying up gold and dumping U.S. treasuries like yesterday's trash. As soon as they successfully offload the USD, the petrodollar comes to a screeching halt and the high standard of living we enjoy relative to the rest of the world will come crashing down — sooner than anybody thinks.

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Trump had a total of 92% staff turnover rate, the highest in US POTUS history going back to Reagan. You omitted this and instead indexed on Biden, whose total staff turnover at 71% is significantly less than Trump’s. #factcheck https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tracking-turnover-in-the-biden-administration/

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Jul 26·edited Jul 26

I've pointed out the way they're using data to deceive in comments below. There is a reason why they want to include the kitchen staff in the number and then only talk about policy positions in their article. It is deliberately deceptive.

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author

Again, as stated earlier in this comment thread, the Trump turnover of "92" percent was on a subsection of his payroll and not on the whole. Calculating the turnover numbers on the gold standard of White House payroll release -- from the president's staff, mandated by statute, every July 1, in a report to Congress -- the Trump turnover rate of his first year hires was 72-percent and Biden was 77-percent.

There's no getting around the extreme Harris staff turnover... national media, i.e. Axios, The Atlantic, WaPo, and others chronicled the exodus. According to Axios, staff left because they didn't want to be known as a "Harris person," it was that toxic.

And the numbers from the Harris OVP payroll add content to the ex-staffer stories.

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Would be great to see these stats as charts to compare numbers across time.

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Jul 25·edited Jul 25

This is a misleading report. It fails to even attempt to mention turnover rates of other VP staff during other administrations. Further, it reports incorrect or inconsistent data. It claims Biden's turnover is 77% and Trump's was 72%. But when comparing Whitehouse staffs during the same calendar interval of January of first term to April of their 4th year, Biden's staff turnover is 71% and Trump's was 92%.

A genuine researcher who publishes reports on administration turnover since the G.W. Bush administration has a consistent methodology. That researcher is Tenpas.

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author

The White House payrolls since 2009 are captured and displayed on our website at openthebooks.com. Those payrolls aren't released in April each year; they are released on July 1st each year in a mandatory release from the White House to Congress. Those are the presidential payrolls that we have given oversight to and on which we are subject matter experts. As stated earlier, the Trump turnover of "92" percent was on a subsection of his payroll and not on the whole.

There's no getting around the extreme Harris staff turnover... national media, i.e. Axios, The Atlantic, WaPo, and others chronicled the exodus. According to Axios, staff left because they didn't want to be known as a "Harris person," it was that toxic.

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Jul 25·edited Jul 25

The other reports are narrower for relevance. Not everyone on the Whitehouse payroll is in a policy or advisory position. The other reports also report on previous administrations in an unbiased manner. Your report is based on the fact you expanded the jobs covered to water down the 92% turnover of Trump's policy and advisory roles.

You also fail to present data from other VPs...in fact I can't even find one online because it was never reported on for strictly VP levels. Only for this VP do you craft a special report. Then, you also exclude the reasons people gave for leaving, which were burnout, money, and negative media stereotypes of working for her. Negative media stereotypes doesn't mean she was toxic, but that a perception of toxicity is created in right wing reportage as well.

I'm not saying it's all roses, but your deliberate failure to report on the nuances or other administrations and detail the significance of why all Whitehouse employees should be counted as having their turnover be meaningful (not sure how the laundry personnel matter in your report). The subsection of policy and advisory roles are relevant positions. But because Trump is so much worse than Biden in this regard, you had to use an expanded dataset of all employees to arrive at a conclusion you found more favorable. While you could accuse Tenpas and Brookings and others of doing the same, that would be invalid, because they set up their parameters and methodologies for which roles were to be included and why, 20 years ago.

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I posted your piece in X & got a question from someone. Do we know Pence’s turnover rate for comparison? Or Biden’s from when he was VP?

I see you got Trump and Biden’s as President.

Thank you.

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I guess that family heritage of being slave owners is continuing to show through.

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I agree with Sasha. Trump should just ignore kamala and let her self destruct.

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At the Debate, Trump said about Biden, "He doesn't fire people. He never fired people." According to the Brookings Institute, Trump's turnover rate at 92% is bigger than any previous President.

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author

The Brookings findings were on just a small subset of executive Trump hires... a comprehensive review of the Trump payroll by our OpenTheBooks auditors found a 72-percent turnover rate. Biden was 77-percent and Harris is 91.5-percent.

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Yes, the actual Whitehouse staff "A Team" which is more than just cabinet members, but does not extend into any and all employees working in the Whitehouse as janitorial staff or in the mail room.

Looking at every single employee under a large enough umbrella and then reporting it as staff turnover is a way to mislead the audience by placing importance on some data that is irrelevant. An honest reportage would include what types of jobs are included in the expanded dataset and why their inclusion is relevant. It would also include commentary and data on industry norms for the positions in question.

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author

It's the full White House staff report as mandated to Congress every July 1... it's the report that all media uses to give oversight. Our team at OpenTheBooks.com just happens to be first published for the last eight years on the oversight. There's never been criticism that "looking at every single employee under a large enough umbrella" distorts the findings. The White House payroll is the umbrella!

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Jul 26·edited Jul 26

You didn't even publish a full report...you published an article. You also chose not to publish on the Trump administration, nor to extract data from VP Pence during his turnover debacle.

And yes, when people think of administration turnover they think about key roles in policy, advising and aides...they do not think about all Whitehouse personnel down to the cooks in the kitchen. You know this, yet you fail to disclose this and instead run with the implication that these are all policy positions fueling these numbers. You selectively interview, or at least quote, only those people in policy positions who support the conclusions you want to be drawn.

So yes, it is deliberately deceptive of you to include the data of all personnel in your unscholarly article, while then rhetorically implying that it is all and only policy positions of people working directly under Harris with personal interactions with her. You do not disclose that your figures include janitorial staff, hospitality workers, etc. This is what makes it a biased and partisan driven article. That and the fact you make no effort to acknowledge, nor caveats regarding, your failure, seemingly due to deliberate omission, to establish a baseline of comparison of the data.

I looked through your 48 reports since 2013...only two cover Presidential Administrations salary and staffing issues..one for the Biden Administration a one for VP Harris.

The people and programs you choose to provide oversight to are heavily partisan and biased choices. Anyone can look through your reports and see the direction in which your efforts are skewed. During Trump's Administration you focused an any government issue other than his administration for audit. During the Biden Administration, you've had numerous articles focused directly on them.

This is not impartial research and oversight. This is agenda driven from a partisan motive.

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Enough already! Just go read leftwing propaganda, selected cherry-picked data distorted into what you want to hear, and perhaps you'll be happy. The article is about Kamala Harris, yet people obsessed with President Trump always try to drag him into every discussion. If you want to defend Kamala, provide data. Don't just keep complaining about it.

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Jul 28·edited Jul 28

I was making arguments about how data analytics are used. The "oversight" group is the one who should provide baseline data for comparison and report on possible explanations or interpretations and juxtaposed them when drawing inferences for the alleged cause behind the data they present.

I don't read left wing propaganda except to call it out when I see it. Same is true for right-wing propaganda masquerading itself as impartial. The group would at least be honest if they disclosed, "we are an ideologically conservative oversight group." If they have it stated on their website I missed it.

As far as Trump is concerned, the article is the one who mentioned him initially. Beside, a serious analysis would provide fair and accurate comparison for establishing baselines. A data point standing alone is largely meaningless because it doesn't provide adequate context to judge it. This is a valid criticism from an analytical perspective. I've made my case and now I'm done with this thread.

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I know we’re not criticizing her for this! How many cabinet ppl did Trump go through???

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At once gain America will be “sold” a candidate by the Trusted News Initiative - they all know she is cringeworthy, yet she assumes the position and the mainstream media chants in unison.

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People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.

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Don't trust, verify.   

This is the only way to regain accountability. We must build new systems to hold our representatives accountable.   They are out of control.  We need parallel, decentralized, 100% transparent systems that we the people have 100% control over.  Basically we need to handcuff our representatives.  Good representatives won't care.  And corrupt ones will be scared away from politics.

We believe we have found the type of system to do this.  Help us solve this:

https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in

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Partisan much ?

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You folks are awesome. Thank you.

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