What the GSA rollout establishes institutionally is a template: announce workforce reductions, then cite automation as the reason, in an order that prevents scrutiny of either decision on its own terms. The NNSA's CIO forecasting AI-driven workforce cuts follows the same sequence — the efficiency claim arrives after the reduction target is already set. The result is that AI functions not as the cause of these decisions but as their post-hoc legitimation, absorbing political cost that would otherwise attach to straightforward austerity. Federal managers are now discovering that this approach…