It's not a good thing that the United States federal government is one of, if not the, largest employer in the republic. It's not a good thing that a lot of these federal employees are essentially like a broken Winchester: They don't work, and you can't fire them. Or at least, they were, until President Trump reclassified them as "at-will." It's not a good thing that too much of Washington, of the Swamp, is feather-bedded all to blazes.
These are the people President Trump and the rest of the GOP are talking about when they talk about draining the swamp. Federal employees overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Their campaign contributions overwhelmingly go to Democrats. Of course, they do; these people, like people everywhere, are voting with their wallets, and Democrats do and always have supported the swamp.
I've often said and written that, in the wildly unlikely event I were ever elected president (hoo boy), one of my first acts would be to visit every federal installation, talk to every federal employee that reports up to the executive branch, and ask them two questions:
What is your purpose here? What are you doing right now?
Anyone who could not answer those questions to my satisfaction would then be told, "You're fired. Get out. Now."
Since resuming office, President Donald Trump has been on a similar mission; the catch is, it has not (yet) gone nearly far enough. A recent Issues & Insights editorial has some unvarnished details:
Donald Trump was elected to accomplish a number of objectives. One of them was to cut, and hard, the federal administrative state. The mission has not been accomplished, but after a year, the federal workforce has fallen from more than 3 million to about 2.7 million, roughly where it was six decades ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Like a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, it’s a good start. But cutting the federal leviathan by roughly a 10th — the largest peacetime downsizing ever, says the Cato Institute — is not enough. Even with the reduction in workers, the effort did not produce less spending.
So two things need to happen: The effort to cut the federal employment needs to continue, and spending has to be slashed.
I would point out that the second follows from the first, although there are many more places where spending could be slashed besides just personnel. But this is where it must begin.
What's more, as I&I points out, the frantic doomcrying of the left over these cuts has not materialized.
We have to reiterate what we said a little more than a year ago: Washington should not be running a jobs program and handing out employment for life. Any thoughts that federal employees are in the business of “public service” are erroneous.
Not all but surely most are there to serve themselves and their party, which they have generously funded with their taxpayer-provided salaries. (Nearly 84% of all federal worker donations to presidential candidates in 2024 went to Kamala Harris.) It’s a mistake to assume that just because someone draws a federal paycheck that they are wise, hardworking, incorruptible, never driven by their own interests but only those of the people they work for. They are humans, not angels.
In the year since the reductions began, the economy has been growing, and inflation has fallen from 3% to 2.4%. The only unrest we see in the streets is being wrought by Democrats who have been incited by other Democrats to rampage against ICE officers enforcing federal law. The environment hasn’t been spoiled, nor have our resources been depleted. Intellectual pursuit and cultural life have been poisoned not due to job losses in the District of Columbia but because the Democrats have become radical degenerates. The Republicans, over the opposition of the Democrats, are trying to root out political corruption and restore confidence in our elections.
That's a good message - and a good argument for defenestrating more federal drones.
Read More: Trump Scores Major Win As Supreme Court Allows Mass Firings of Federal Employees to Stand
So, here's the thing? What would the picture in Washington, vis-à-vis the federal workforce, be if the government was actually within its constitutional limits? Well, there would be no more:
- Department of Education
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Energy
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Department of Labor
- Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Small Business Administration
There are more. None of these things, these agencies, are described in the Constitution as an enumerated function of the federal government. A plain reading of the 10th Amendment, then, would indicate to Washington, "You can't do these things. The states can - you can't."
So the president and his administration have been nibbling around the edges at what properly should be done: Reduce the federal government to essential, national functions. Retain the War Department, the Treasury Department; retain State and Interior. The rest can go. The rest should go.
President Trump has reclassified as many as 50,000 added federal employees as "at-will" employees, meaning they can be fired. Like a bus full of communists going over a cliff, that's what one might call "a good start." Let's kick up the pace, Mr. President. Return our federal government to within its rightful, constitutional restrictions. Slash taxes accordingly. Then, watch America boom.
