Colbert Compares Trump’s Buyout Program for Federal Employees to Removing Parts of a Car Until it No Longer Functions

COLBERT: “Of course, the grant freeze is just one of the confusing and chaotic things that Trump attempted in the last week. Last night, the Trump Administration popped off an E-mail to 2 million federal employees, offering incentives to federal workers to quit their jobs. Is there any chance — I’m sorry, is there any chance I’m a federal worker? Did you check? Can you check? Go check.
(Laughter)
It’s unclear what the offer was, because the email issued a lot of vague threats about rescinding work from home and relocating federal offices, and then transitioned to outright threats, like this one: ‘At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency, but should your position be eliminated, you will be treated with dignity.’ Okay, that doesn’t sound like an employer. That sounds like a funeral director. ‘We have a lovely selection of dignified oak or stainless steel, let’s call them ’cubicles,’ and Marge and our makeup team will make your democracy look like it’s just sleeping.’ It sure seems like they’re trying to make conditions so bad for federal workers that they’ll all just quit. And the federal employees union is not cool with that. The union president said, ‘It is clear that the Trump Administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.’ Yes, it’s the ‘Dutch oven’ theory of employment. Yes, technically, you’re welcome to stay in the bed, but you may not like it when President Trump lifts up those covers.’ Experts say even a fraction of the workforce accepting buyouts could send shockwaves through the economy and trigger widespread disruptions throughout society as a whole, triggering wide-ranging — and as yet unknowable — implications. Huh. You know, first car I ever owned was a 1978 powder blue Pinto. I bought it from my brother Billy for a dollar and I got ripped off. But what she lacked in acceleration, she made up for in rattle. It clearly had some problems, but I didn’t have any money to fix it, and I didn’t know anything about cars. So what I would do is I would drive it over a shallow drainage ditch across the street from me, and I’d keep it running, and I’d pull the handbrake really hard and I’d shimmy under it with a hammer, a pair of pliers, and a screwdriver. I would touch the hammer to various things under the car, and if by touching them, the rattling stopped, I would use the other tools to remove that thing from the car. After a while, I had a beautiful collection of rusty hunks of metal on the wall of my garage. I had no idea what they did, but the car was still running. Until one day, I removed one too many mystery parts, and then it died. So I left it on the street, where it was eventually towed away to an area of Chicago you don’t want to know about called ‘Lower Wacker Drive.’ Now, I’m not saying the American government doesn’t have problems. It clearly does. What I’m saying is, if we just let Trump start firing people and cutting programs without knowing who any of them are or what any of them do, sooner or later, America’s gonna get ‘Lower Wacker-ed.’”