Interview transcript:

 

Terry Gerton As we look back, the shutdown’s over now, but it lasted over a month and it really froze critical functions across every federal agency. From your vantage point, what were the most immediate and severe impacts on lenders and small businesses?

Dave Bohrman Well, Terry, I think that’s obviously a big question because there’s some latency in what those impacts will be. So some of that will come out in the days and weeks and months ahead. But looking at it very specifically, you also have to kind of consider what was the situation going into the government shutdown, and that kind of governs what actually those impacts will were or are going to be. So you have a highly volatile economy from a lot of uncertainty, whether that be from the tariffs or whether that be from tax policy, or whether that be from any of the agencies’ policies internally with respect to workforce. All of that kind of created a perfect storm with the political situation of the landscape in Washington; really made a real recipe for the government shutdown to happen. My question always was, once a government shutdown happens, how do we get out of it? And that what we witnessed. So as far as the impact, any small businesses that were looking to do any government-guaranteed lending, 7(a), 504 program within the SBA, that was frozen if their loan wasn’t already into some kind of post approval process. IRS, if you work for the IRS, you obviously know the story. The IRS is a completely different scenario. They went from 100,000 employees to 25% haircut to 75,000 employees and to about half of that were still in operation during the government shutdown this time. I’ve been around long enough, the first shutdown I was part of was 2013. That was pretty small, 13 days. But the last one was the historic one, 35 days. And at that point in time, the IRS was completely shut down. If you were doing anything with any kind of, you know, and “tax” is very broad … so whether you were a tax preparer or you were trying to get tax data or you were dealing with information reporting, there was zero access. This time you had a hybrid of access. So I would say the impact of anybody trying to get information or deal with the IRS, it was marginalized and confusing at best, but there was something happening. If you were looking for anything with the SBA, you were pretty much put on standstill, whether you were a lender or a small business trying to get a loan.

Terry Gerton Well let’s go back to the IRS for a minute, because you say there were folks working and there was some access but it was confusing and perhaps fragmented. Why is IRS data so critical to the lending process, and what impact did it have with a reduction in access to that data?

Dave Bohrman Well, that’s somewhat part of what we do as a business, is get taxpayer data over to commercial lenders or financial institutions that are using it to make a business decision. When it comes to the SBA, because it’s government-guaranteed and there is a taxpayer component to it, the government has very strict guidelines on how to underwrite a 7(a) or 504 loan, it’s governed by their SOP, their standard operating procedures. In that it actually requires tax data, one from the borrower, the borrower has to provide a tax return, and two — directly from, at an arm’s length — from the IRS in a tax return transcript to reconcile that information. And the reason that has to be reconciled is because it can sniff out fraud. If somebody misreports their income, we go to the IRS and we say, your income doesn’t match. Or it can shine a very big light on cash flow. A small business that’s making payroll tax deposits on average twice a week — that payment behavior is very indicative of their financial help. So being able to sniff out whether a business is paying their taxes on time or not is really a key data point for lenders to make a credit decision, whether it be yes or no. The SBA requires it, commercial lenders, some have it part of their credit policy, some do not. But it’s a real problem that we’re trying to solve or at least help lenders make better credit decisions.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Dave Bohrman. He’s the co-founder and vice president of marketing at Tax Guard. Let’s follow the thread then. The SBA was basically closed. So for 40-plus days, no one was getting an application submitted, no one was getting a loan approved. And you also mentioned the latency impact of that. Talk us through that. What’s going to happen now that SBA’s doors are back open?

Dave Bohrman Well, there’s the business side. Because it is a public-private partnership, the private end of it is basically most banks in America have an SBA lending program. That is the upstream pipeline of applications. So when we talk to commercial lenders, they were continuing to accept applications, process them internally and get them ready and packaged for SBA delivery. So what you expect to happen, what we’re seeing happen, is the SBA just said, “we’re open.” So now they have this backlog that they’re processing. So in the next couple of days to weeks, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes through the system so that the small businesses that are looking to be funded get funded as soon as they can.

Terry Gerton As you think about this funding lapse, would you say that it exposed any sort of systematic weaknesses both, for banks and borrowers? Was there anything because of the duration here that maybe needs to be specifically addressed?

Dave Bohrman Well, that’s an interesting question because you because history will tell you something. In the past 25 years, since 2000, there’s really been three meaningful government shutdowns. So from a systemic planning process on the agency side and the federal government side, it’s probably a little bit out of bounds to kind of truly build anything into the system to account for a government shutdown. Similarly, on a business side, it’s hard to build a business process around something that happens so infrequently. So if you kind of look at the X and Y axes, it’s very damaging when it happens, but it happens very infrequently. So to answer the question, what systemic things will be changed, I can’t imagine much.

Terry Gerton As you look forward as the government gets back up to speed in these areas, are there ripple effects that you think lenders and small businesses should be looking out for? Do you expect any change in credit standards or compliance risks?

Dave Bohrman Absolutely. Kind of going back to the point of the hyper-dynamic nature and the hyper-volatile nature of the economy as it stands today, everything in the simplest form would be there’s the demand side, so small businesses that are looking for loans, and the supply side, which is the lenders that are giving the loans. So what we’ve seen since the beginning of this current administration, especially, because of the uncertainty and planning, the desire to take capital has been diminished. So the demand side has come down. And some of that — what are the interest rates going to be? Should I wait for a better interest rate? Some of that is, there’s tariffs that are impacting my business, I don’t know where that’s going to land. There are supply chain issues, I’m not sure what to do with those. So we’ve seen the demand side go down. And I think that … if you take the theme of certainty versus uncertainty and certainty driving small-business decisions, we’re still in an uncertain environment. The ripple effects of a government shutdown on top of all of those things add more uncertainty to the equation. I think we have some more, should we say, pain to work through before we get to a place of stability where we would see the credit markets kind of operate in some kind of normal fashion. But it is kind of hard to say what is normal. And on the credit side, creditors — their credit boxes have been getting tighter. The SBA underwriting requirements have increased since the Biden administration. So on the supply side, lenders are getting a little bit more frugal by which who they give money to. And on the demand side, small businesses are looking for credit less, which is impacting the overall economy.

Terry Gerton With the uncertain availability of government data, whether it’s tax data or economic data, do you see a trend for lenders especially to be looking for alternative sources of data as they consider what they’re going to do?

Dave Bohrman Absolutely. And we’ve been doing this since 2007, 2008. The general premise of tax data really isn’t about taxes. It’s really just about a database of small business or business or taxpayer information that is very rich. So when you think about the consumer, you or I, Terry, when we go get a car or we get a credit card, there’s a rich database, whether that’s the credit bureaus or all these kinds of reporting structures, that tells a lot of information about you or I as individuals. Businesses are under a completely different data regime and reporting regime, and they are governed by more usury laws, and that’s kind of based on the premise that small businesses or business in general — they should be left alone. So what that means is there are very little data requirements in the credit-data world for small businesses. So tax data, as we call it, or what we’re talking about payroll data or income data, all the things that live in an IRS database are very rich. It’s a very rich data pool by which lenders can look through. So we’re not the only ones doing this, there are people doing this. So to the point of tax data on any small business or even an individual can be very helpful in understanding who to give money to or who the good bets are, or maybe somebody that didn’t have enough data on them. Tax data tells the story that this is a compliant business and you should be able to give them funding. On the economic data, that that’s a little bit more broad. I know that during the shutdown, there was not a lot of data released. So that will be interesting to see how that plays out. And let’s just say we have a bad job report or gross domestic product, all the economic indicator reports that are going to come out over the coming weeks, that will be interesting to see how that rattles or ripples the credit markets.

The post The shutdown may be over, but its ripple effects on lending and tax compliance are just beginning first appeared on Federal News Network.

Eric White We’re coming close to the end of the year. It’s been a shaky end as usual, and you’ve got open season tackling in and everything like that. You know, tell me why this is the perfect time to be thinking about taxes next April.

Thiago Glieger I know, this is the topic nobody likes to think about, especially not early and before we have to, right? But smart federal employees are looking at their income year to date, and they’re looking at things like tax withholding. If there were any major changes this year, like a promotion or a bonus, or maybe your spouse retired, something like that, your withholding might be off. And then there’s a variety of other things too, that you’ll want to incorporate, like making sure that you don’t wanna incorporate some kind of charitable giving. A lot of people do that at the end of the year. There’s RMDs that come in. So there’s a lot of little things that, if we start paying attention to now, all of it affects taxes. So we wanna get ahead of those things.

Eric White Yeah, so let’s get into it rather than actually saying let’s get ahead of it. How do you actually go about doing that?

Thiago Glieger Yeah, so one of the biggest things we tell federal employees to be aware of, Eric, is to make sure that they are actually maximizing their TSP contributions, if they can afford to do so. Obviously, this is an interesting time to be doing that, given that, you know, people aren’t being paid, but the idea of maxing out the TSP helps you to save on taxes if you’re using pre-tax contributions. So before the end of the year, you want to try and get as much as you can in there. So the contribution for 2025, the limit is $23,000. If you are over 50, it’s $7,500 additionally. So if you’re behind on contributions and you actually want to get all of those paychecks in there, you can actually adjust some pay periods so that you do a little bit more and get yourself caught up. Okay, now for 2026, this is where some of the big changes are going to come to the TSP contributions. First, we’re going to start getting the normal inflation adjustment for the contribution limits. The amount that you can contribute under 50 goes up by a thousand and then catch-up goes up by another 500. But the biggest change is how that catch-up contribution is going to happen. So for people who are over 50 and they’re going to be earning $145,000 or more as a federal salary, they can no longer do that pre-tax deduction. What does that mean? That means you’re going have to pay taxes on all of that catch-up contribution. So. This is a pretty big thing as people start thinking about taxes for next year. Your taxable income could actually be going up and you might actually owe a little bit more in tax.

Eric White Yeah. Are there any changes coming down the pipeline that you’re hearing regarding TSP contributions? Are those amounts going to go up again in the backdrop of that? This is a very strange time to be talking about this.

Thiago Glieger Yeah, Eric, each year we see a little bit of an inflation adjustment where the … IRS actually will come out and say, hey, everyone participating in a 401k type of plan like the T.S.P. Now you can put a little more each year. It Just helps you stay on top of saving a little but more. And so we’re definitely going to see that. Of course, for anyone over 50, you have that additional catch up contribution. And then for people who are a little older than that, there’s the special catch up contribution as well. So, lots of ways to get more money in the Thrift Savings Plan, and again, if you’re already thinking about taxes for next year, you want to consider whether or not you’re going to be forced to do Roth contributions for the catch-up, because that means you have to pay the tax up front, and so that’s a big change both in the amounts and in how you’re contributing that’s coming to the TSP next year.

Eric White I’m talking with Thiago Glieger, private wealth advisor for RMG advisors. On those TSP contributions, we’ll get a little bit more into the investment side of things, but during this time that we had mentioned, a lot of folks aren’t getting their paychecks regularly. The idea of borrowing against your TSP plan is now a plan that most folks are going to have to result to. What can you tell us about what they should be on the lookout for if it comes down to that.

Thiago Glieger Yeah, Eric, this is just such a hard time for federal employees and it’s really unfortunate that we are down to these last little solutions of trying to borrow against ourselves. But the idea of borrowing from ourselves instead of borrowing another type of creditor like a bank or a financial institution means that you’re going to be paying yourself the interest if you borrow from the TSP and it forces you as soon as you start getting paid again. It forces you to start repaying yourself back each paycheck. So it really allows you to be very disciplined and not overspending, taking the money and then not ever paying it back. The reason that that’s very nice is because it gives you access to liquidity immediately. And if you have to put food on the table, you have make a bill payment, you have pay your mortgage, that’s a really good way to get cash very quickly — which the TSP is still functioning. A lot of people think that the government is shut down, people can’t access the TSP. That’s not true. You can actually go in there and get that. There’s different types of TSP loans. You can get up to $50,000 for a GenPurpose one. And you can see the information. The TSP has a really nice page that talks about the loans and how they work and how much you can get. If you’ve tapped it before, then obviously there’s going to be some limitations there. But if you’re in a dire situation and you’re looking at, you know, not being able to make a mortgage payment or having to put some huge bill on a credit card and possibly start down this rabbit hole of credit card debt, the TSP loan can be a really good option for you.

Eric White Let’s look at farther down the future here. As far as capital gains and avoiding the tax bill that can sometimes come when you’re looking for liquidity fast and easy from selling some of your holdings, what is it that people should keep in mind if they go that route?

Thiago Glieger The big thing, Eric, with capital gains is that people who own non-retirement accounts, so brokerage accounts, right — they are going to be subject to any sort of capital gains taxes. And there’s a lot of things that you can do to help reduce those taxes, one of which is called tax-loss harvesting. So this is something that as the markets go up and down, you can take use of that volatility and create tax savings for yourself throughout the year. So it is something you want to do year round, but you can always look at this time of the year and go back and see is there anything in my portfolio that I could sell that could help me to create some tax savings. If you have additional tax loss beyond any of the gain that you’re realizing you can actually offset up to $3,000 of your salary in these capital losses as well. So if you think about salary income, that’s the highest form of tax that we have. And if you can reduce $3,000 worth of that salary for tax purposes, then you’re actually saving several hundreds of dollars in taxes simply by doing a very simple strategy in your portfolio.

Eric White And the length of holding those positions also has an effect on that. Do I have that correct?

Thiago Glieger That’s right. If you’re going to be realizing gains or losses, depending on how long you held it, the IRS treats that differently. So the key number we want to be aware of is 12 months or more. Anything that’s 12 months is considered long-term, right? And anything that’s less than 12 months, is considered short-term. The only other time horizon thing that you want to be aware of too, Eric — that I think you were alluding to — is this idea of a wash sale. So if you’re creating tax savings from a loss in your investments, you gotta be really careful about not to rebuy the same stock within a period of time, not have sold it prior to the sale. There’s some rules around there that you gotta be real careful [about].

Eric White All right, and this time of year, and a lot of people going through some hardship right now. Another way is through some charitable giving. How can you — well, you know, it sounds bad to look out for yourself when you’re trying to be helpful — but what can you do to maximize really the way that it can benefit you as well when making a charitable donation.

Thiago Glieger The best way that you can give philanthropically or to any charity is if it benefits both them and you. That’s a situation where everybody wins and who doesn’t like that? There’s a couple of really smart ways that people will do these kind of charity and donating. The first is if someone is looking at their RMDs. So this time of the year, we have required minimum distributions that are gonna be applicable to anybody over a certain age. So typically that’s 73 for most people these days. And the good news is the TSP is gonna take that money out of your thrift savings account automatically. But the bad news is you pay taxes on that whole distribution. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could instead, if you are a regular contributor to a charity of sorts, maybe give some of that RMD to the charity directly. So that’s a strategy that people could do. Unfortunately, you can’t do that within the TSP, but you can do that with an IRA. But you don’t pay the taxes on it, the charity doesn’t pay taxes on, and you satisfy your RMD all at the same time. So that’s a really helpful tip that a lot of federal employees have been able to do. Key age for that is 70 and a half, okay? So this is not something that’s available to everybody. But frankly, if you’re coming up on RMDs and worried about that, you’re gonna be probably a little older anyway, so that’s big one.

Eric White Anything else that people should keep in mind as the year ends out here and looking towards next year and what is probably going to be another up and down one?

Thiago Glieger Yeah, we’ve got open season coming up here in about a month or so, Eric, right? And so I think that it would be smart for federal employees to look at some of the tools within your benefits package, because those can help save taxes as well. So, for example, if you’re not using the FSA, which is a flexible spending account, you need to go to FSA feds and really consider using that tool. You can put a few thousand dollars in it. I want to say something like $2,000 or $3,000 as a family every single year. And listen, everybody has some kind of medical expense. Even if you’re going to the doctor just once a year, you can use that money. It’s fully tax deductible. And then if you use that money for a qualified medical expense, you don’t pay any taxes on that money either. So it’s like getting tax-free healthcare services. And the important detail with the FSA is that you are going to lose the bulk of it if you don’t use it. So you always wanna make sure maybe you don’t contribute too much of it into it. Or you can use the money for all kinds of interesting qualified expenses. I’ll give you an example. Some of our clients have purchased — they had a couple of thousand bucks still left in an FSA, they were gonna lose it — they purchased a defibrillator, an AED for their household using those funds and they got it completely tax-free. You can buy Band-Aids, you can buy aspirin, all kinds other stuff, and you can see what’s qualified and what’s not online. So that’s a really nice benefit to look at for taxes at yearr end.

Eric White I think I’d buy one of those CPR dummies they look like they’re fun to play with a little

Thiago Glieger I bet you it’s probably qualified.

The post When paychecks stop and tax season looms, what moves should federal employees make? first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Federal employees will be able to contribute more to their Thrift Savings Plan accounts next year. The IRS increased the maximum annual contribution limit to $24,500, which is a $1,000 increase over 2025. Additionally, employees aged 50 or older can save more money through their catch-up contributions. And if employees are aged 60 to 63, they can save even more with a higher catch up contribution of $11,250.
  (IRS increases annual TSP savings limit for 2026 - IRS)
• A new bill would put a hold on some 8(a) contract awards. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) wants to stop all no-bid awards under the 8(a) Small Business Program until the Small Business Administration completes a detailed audit. The chairwoman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship's Stop 8(a) Contracting Fraud Act would put any new sole source 8(a) contracts on hold until the report is submitted to the committee in 2026. Ernst said the 8(a) program is broken and needs to be reformed. The bill comes after two high-profile examples of 8(a) contractors allegedly committing fraud. Agencies make more than 5,700 8(a) sole source awards a year.
  (Sen. Ernst wants to put freeze on 8(a) sole source awards - Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa))
• Veterans Affairs said service members forced out of the military for refusing a COVID vaccine are once again eligible for GI Bill education benefits. More than 8,000 service members refused to comply with the Biden-era vaccine mandate and separated from the military. More than half of them received a less-than-honorable discharge. That may have made them ineligible for GI Bill benefits. The VA said nearly 900 veterans are once again eligible for those benefits under the Trump administration, and that thousands more could regain eligibility.
  (Trump EO reinstates GI Bill benefits to Veterans discharged for refusing COVID vaccine - Department of Veterans Affairs)
• A majority of House lawmakers want a vote on a bill to end the Trump administration’s rollback of collective bargaining for federal employees. A bipartisan bloc of 218 House lawmakers signed onto a discharge petition forcing the House to vote on the Protect America’s Workforce Act. The bill would restore collective bargaining rights for tens of thousands of federal employees, if approved by Congress. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) was the most recent lawmaker to back the bill. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that barred unions from bargaining on behalf of federal employees at many agencies, on the grounds that those agencies work primarily in national security.
  (House majority forces vote on bill to restore collective bargaining for most federal employees - Federal News Network)
• The acting chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned on Monday. David Richardson stepped down from performing the duties of the FEMA administrator after six months on the job. Richardson’s tenure was marked by major staff departures and program cuts. He also faced criticism over FEMA’s response to deadly floods in Texas over the summer. FEMA Chief of Staff Karen Evans will take on the duties of FEMA administrator starting December 1st.
  (FEMA acting chief David Richardson departs after six months on the job - Associated Press)
• The Federal Communications Commission is moving to reverse some recently issued cybersecurity requirements. The FCC will vote on Thursday to rescind cybersecurity rules for telecommunications providers. Those rules were put in place late in the Biden administration in response to the sweeping Salt Typhoon hacks that infiltrated telecom networks across the world. U.S. officials have attributed that campaign to Chinese government-backed hackers. But the current FCC leaders said the rules were unlawful and ineffective from a cyber standpoint. They point to cyber improvements that telecom providers say they have made on a voluntary basis.
  (FCC to vote on reversing cyber rules adopted after Salt Typhoon hack - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department is failing to address the security risks created by the massive amount of publicly accessible digital information about its personnel and operations. The Government Accountability Office found that digital activity from personal and government devices, online communications and defense platforms generate traceable data, which puts DoD personnel, their families, operations and national security at risk. GAO said the department needs to conduct a comprehensive review of its security policies and guidance to identify gaps in how it manages risks in the digital environment.
  (Massive digital footprints put troops, missions at risk, watchdog finds - Government Accountability Office)
• The Defense Department has released a new list of critical technology areas. Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael has reduced the number of research-and-development priorities to six areas of focus. The list includes artificial intelligence, contested logistics technologies and scaled hypersonics. “When I stepped into this role, our office had identified 14 critical technology areas; while each of these areas holds value, such a broad list dilutes focus and fails to highlight the most urgent needs of the war fighter. Fourteen priorities in truth means no priorities at all,” Emil Michael said.
  (DoD narrows down list of critical technology areas - LinkedIn)

The post IRS increases annual TSP maximum contribution first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Treasury Department is officially suspending Direct File, a free, online tax filing platform the IRS launched last year. The department said it’s exploring alternatives. That includes strengthening its partnership with tax preparation companies through its Free File program. Direct File expanded to 25 states during this year’s filing season and saw higher favorability scores. But Treasury said the program cost too much and didn’t see enough usage to keep scaling it up. It said the IRS spent more than $40 million on Direct File this year. That breaks down to nearly $140 for every return submitted using Direct File.
  (Report on the replacement of Direct File - Treasury Department)
• Senate Democrats are trying to stop reductions-in-force during the government shutdown once and for all. A new bill called the SAFE Act would undo all RIF-related actions that have happened since the shutdown began. The legislation would also bar additional RIFs from occurring during any future lapse in appropriations. The Democrats’ bill comes after more than 4,000 RIF notices went out to federal employees last month. Almost all of those layoffs are currently on hold due to a court order.
  (Securing Assurance for Federal Employees (SAFE) Act - Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.))
• More than 35,000 people applied to work at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services since Sept. 30 under its Homeland Defender Campaign. USCIS said it has made hundreds of job offers and will begin onboarding the first Homeland Defenders soon. The agency said among those receiving offers are former law enforcement personnel and veterans with experience serving and protecting communities and the homeland. USCIS Homeland Defenders may be eligible for signing bonuses up to $50,000, student loan repayment, flexible duty locations and remote work options. USCIS is using an expedited hiring process for entry-level positions that do not require a college degree.
  (USCIS receives 50,000 applicants for Homeland Defenders jobs - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)
• Federal employees are experiencing disruptions in the workplace at a rate far higher than the national average. Close to one-third of federal employees say their workplace has been disrupted “to a very large extent.” That’s nearly triple the 10% of U.S. employees who say the same, according to the latest data from Gallup. The frequent disruptions in the workplace are leading to increases in stress and loneliness among federal employees, as well as a decline in employee engagement and satisfaction.
  (Federal employees are reporting major workplace disruptions at nearly triple the national average - Federal News Network)
• Michael Payne, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, told lawmakers he would work to restore the office’s credibility by refocusing on CAPE’s statutory mission as an independent advisory rather than an advocacy organization. The office has faced scrutiny for operating beyond its statutory responsibilities. House lawmakers previously considered shutting down the office altogether. While the 2024 defense policy bill mandated the department to overhaul how the office operates, it has yet to implement those changes. Payne also said the office has been pushing some of its cost-estimation work to the military services due to its strained workforce.
  (Nominee for Pentagon CAPE director pledges to return the office to its core mission - Federal News Network)
• Feds anticipate more co-workers will call out sick as the shutdown drags on. A Federal News Network “pulse poll” taken over a 36-hour period earlier this week shows two-thirds of the 730 respondents say they believe more of their co-workers will call out sick more often if the lapse in appropriations continues deeper into November. The concept of a "sick-out" has been used by air traffic controllers and transportation security officers, but it hasn't been widespread among other agencies. More than 43% of the respondents to the survey say they haven't noticed more employees taking sick leave since the shutdown began. A majority of the respondents, however, did say as the shutdown continues, they are very or somewhat concerned about their personal finances.
  (If the shutdown continues, more feds expecting ‘sick outs’ - Federal News Network)
• The Marine Corps has rolled out its enlistment bonuses for fiscal 2026, offering the biggest payout to recruits who sign up for specialized roles in cyber and electronics maintenance. The incentives aren't limited to high-demand technical roles; the service is also offering shipping bonuses to recruits in any specialty who agree to leave for boot camp on the service’s schedule. Recruits who enter the electronics maintenance and cyber and cryptologic operations career fields could earn up to $15,000. Recruits across dozens of military specialties can also qualify for a $5,000 or $10,000 shipping bonus. The service is also offering $7,000 or $15,000 “targeted investment” bonuses for applicants willing to extend their enlistment contracts by one or two years.
  (Marine Corps offers $15,000 bonuses to attract cyber, electronics recruits - Federal News Network)
• Federal employee unions are suing the Trump administration for including a new essay question on thousands of federal job applications. One of several new essay questions on job applications asks candidates how they would “advance the President’s executive orders and policy priorities,” and to name one or two executive orders significant to them. The unions claim the question allows the administration to weed out applicants who aren’t loyal to President Donald Trump’s policies. Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management states candidates aren’t required to respond to the essay question and that responses can’t be treated as a political litmus test. But candidates are still encouraged to answer the question.
  (Unions sue Trump administration over ‘loyalty question’ added to federal job applications - Federal News Network)

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