Week 4 Problem/Solution
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| When | Why |
|---|---|
| Feb-27-25 | week 4 |
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What Would a Drastically Reduced Government Workforce Mean for Americans?
Don’t expect less taxes, experts say. Instead, expect longer waits for social services and shorter hours for national parks.
The Reality of an Axed Federal Workforce
YUKI IWAMURA|AFP|GETTY IMAGES
Morning commuters cross the street, Jan. 30, 2025, in Manhattan, N.Y.
President Donald Trump has been in the White House for less than three weeks and one thing has become clear: His administration – with the help of billionaire Elon Musk – will shrink the federal government in size and scope. Though experts warn their moves will likely lead to a reduction in services for the average American, they also suggest that they are unlikely to result in tax savings.
Federal employees initially had until 11:59 p.m. Thursday to sign up for the “deferred resignation” program the Trump administration announced last week, but a federal judge has paused the deadline until he can hear arguments about the legality of the plan. The offer for federal civilian employees – excluding those working in immigration, national security or air traffic control – would allow them to quit their jobs and continue to receive salaries through September. Questions swirled over the legality of the offer and whether it would come to fruition, leaving federal employees the choice of accepting its uncertain terms or staying at their jobs with future layoffs looming.
More than 40,000 employees of the 2 million who were said to have been offered the buyout have reportedly accepted the deal. That’s out of roughly 2.3 million people in the civilian workforce – a figure that swells to over 3 million when uniformed military personnel are included. U.S. Postal service employees also aren’t counted because that agency is privately funded. And though the workers accepting buyouts make up only 2% of federal employees, their impact on the lives of everyday Americans could be evident, says Hans Noel, associate professor of government at Georgetown University.
“One of the longest running conflicts in politics is about the tradeoff between how much the government provides in services and how much its citizens must be taxed to pay for those services. And it is absolutely a tradeoff,” he says. “Many of the services we rely on are not always clear before they are restricted. Everything from road maintenance to air traffic control to food inspections are felt when they fail, but we don’t notice them when they are working properly.”
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Trump first introduced the idea of using Musk to help curb government waste and regulation on the campaign trail. Soon after he was elected, Trump followed through on that promise and created the Department of Government Efficiency, giving Musk unprecedented authority to slash and reshape the federal government. And while it’s not an official government department, Musk – who was not elected and not Senate-approved – and the Trump administration are making quick work of downsizing. As part of that, they have also targeted government agencies whose missions or spending they question and rolled back job protections for employees. Most of the moves appear political in nature, though the administration has characterized them as cost cutting.
Here are some of the moves that have reshaped the government since Inauguration Day:
- On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to reclassify career federal employees into a new category that removes their civil service protections and allows them to be fired at will. He also ordered a federal hiring freeze.
- Trump canceled recently negotiated federal union contracts and ended telework options for the federal workforce.
- The Trump administration offered federal workers the opportunity to accept a “deferred resignation” that would allow them to leave their jobs and be paid through September.
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DOGE shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides aid to fund education, fight starvation and poverty and end epidemics overseas, among other initiatives. Nearly all USAID workers were called off the job and out of the field this week following Musk’s determination that the spending was wasteful.
“Spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on social media.
- DOGE intervened at the Department of Treasury, accessing the payment systems that distributes trillions of dollars of benefits, grants and tax refunds. In response to concerns over Musk and his team having access to sensitive information, including Social Security, a Treasury Department official said DOGE had “read-only access” to the government's payment system. But that claim is contrary to what Musk himself is saying on social media – that DOGE is “rapidly shutting down” payments.
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Trump said this week he would like to also close the Department of Education but acknowledged he needs congressional approval first.
"We spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we're ranked at the bottom of the list. We're ranked very badly. And what I want to do is let the states run schools," Trump said Tuesday.
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Several of the administration’s actions raise legal questions, including whether Trump can cancel union contracts agreed upon before he was in office and whether a congressionally codified department like USAID can be legally closed without the approval of Congress.
David Richards, head of the political science department at the University of Lynchburg, says a “smaller, less meddlesome government” is a traditionally conservative political goal, though Trump’s approach is missing the mark.
“So far, the Trump administration’s approach has been more destructive than reforming,” he says. “These efforts to slash and burn parts of the government are bound to have an effect on average people.”
Richards predicts some “quasi-independent” agencies like the U.S. Postal Service won’t see a reduction in services, but wait times for agencies like the Social Security Administration or for passports or social services might be even longer than usual if staff are cut. Additionally, fewer Transportation Security Administration agents mean longer lines at the airport, and fewer park rangers may mean shorter operating hours at national parks.
Added February 27, 2025 at 4:28pm
by 2025 Charlton Fiscus
Title: week 4
The timing of the government’s downsizing also presents challenges to Trump’s own agenda as he tries to implement sweeping changes at government agencies.
“Border protection and the implementation of tariffs require administrative capacity,” Noel says. “Cutting the Department of Education will make it harder to regulate teaching ‘divisive subjects,’ which is also a priority. Encouraging government workers to retire means fewer people to implement all of those changes.”
Todd Belt, director of the Political Management Program at George Washington University, agrees that there’s likely to be a reduction in services as a result of the downsizing, though he suggests the smaller workforce won’t translate to savings for taxpayers.
“The tax cuts that Trump has proposed are a continuation of the 2017 tax cuts which are still in effect, as well as a cut to the corporate tax rate. Since the 2017 tax cuts heavily favor the wealthy, I don't see how these revenue cuts can be seen to help most Americans,” he says. “It also looks like Trump is trying to use some revenue cuts to develop the new sovereign wealth fund to purchase TikTok, so I fail to see how that will help most Americans.”
Richards agrees that the smaller workforce won’t lead to more money in Americans’ pocketbooks.
“We already spend significantly more than we take in in taxes. Even billions in savings will not offset that overspending and lower tax revenue proposed by the Trump administration,” he says. “Less government expenditure might result in a reduction in the speed of the U.S. national debt growth, but if the smaller government slows down the economy by slowing everything down, that will mean reduced tax revenue. And we would be back at square one with our national debt.”
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