Federal worker cuts are mostly not gonna happen
I’ve read where Musk and Ramaswami are proposing a 75% cut in the federal workforce. That’s absurd.
• National security-related agencies account for roughly 70% of the civilian workforce. The largest employers were the Department of Veterans Affairs, with 487,000 workers, followed by the armed services, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department. Republicans in Congress are not going to propose a 75% cut in the Armed forces and law enforcement;
• Outside of the DC area, the highest concentrations of federal employees are mostly in red states. GOP congressmen aren’t going to cut off those federal tax dollars to their districts.
Like with Trump tariffs, these massive layoff threats are just bloviation.
Federal workers targeted for elimination
The link you provided says “Musk has said he aims to cut spending by 30%, while Ramaswamy has called for firing half of the federal workforce.” Not sure where you get the 75% from your first sentence.
My concern is with workforce changes is removing people who know what they are doing to replace them with people who are loyal. It does not take large numbers to have large impact.
@Arne,
I read it in a different article.
“Musk wants to slash US government spending by a third, and Ramaswamy wants to cut 75% of the federal workforce.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/11/25/what-do-elon-musk-and-vivek-ramaswamy-plan-to-do-with-doge
“For his part, Ramaswamy says he’d cut 75 percent of the two million-plus federal civilian workers.”
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/what-trumps-doge-team-gets-wrong-about-federal-workforce
Not that it matters. Not gonna happen.
You are correct that the real threat is to push out competent and patriotic people and replace them with loyal, incompetent people. Net zero numerical change. That was my point.
However, I probably should acknowledge an alternative: that the fired federal employees will be replaced with private sector contract employees. They’ll probably be more expensive than the federal employees they replace, so no cost savings.