While Donald Trump\u2019s agenda and a massive think tank document clearly indicate his second-term strategy for federal workers, nothing captures those plans as succinctly as a statement made by his running mate.<\/p>\n
If Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, were to give Trump \u201cone piece of advice,\u201d he said in 2021, it would be \u201cfire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance pushed that line on a podcast, when he was running for the Senate, his first elective post. His office did not reply to questions about the statement, but the Trump campaign\u2019s response makes it clear that a purge is the plan. Republicans have long favored hiring more private companies to do government work, but Trump has also taken particular exception to career bureaucrats he blames for blocking his agenda in his first term.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump and Sen. JD Vance will take swift and unprecedented action to protect Americans from the out-of-control Deep State, fire rogue bureaucrats and career politicians, and return power back to the American people,\u201d Karoline Leavitt, the Trump\u2019s campaign national press secretary, said by email. She concluded with a Trump quote from a campaign video: \u201cI will shatter the Deep State, and restore government that is controlled by the People.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s assume Vance\u2019s remarks were the ramblings of a rookie politician, who knew nothing about how the federal government works. That shouldn\u2019t apply, however, to former presidents, including Trump, whose term was marked by repeated attacks on federal workers and particularly the unions representing them.<\/p>\n
Essentially calling federal employees swamp dwellers and deep state denizens defines Trump\u2019s approach to the workforce. His Agenda47 outlines \u201cmy plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all. \u2026 I will immediately reissue my 2020 Executive Order restoring the President\u2019s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively.\u201d<\/p>\n
That controversial order, which was never fully implemented by the Trump administration and then was quickly revoked by President Biden, created \u201cSchedule F,\u201d a federal employment category with \u201can exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions.\u201d For workers in that category, the order also eliminated civil service protections, which allow feds due process procedures to appeal terminations and other disciplinary actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe merit-based, civil service system appears not to align with the \u2026 loyalty viewed as necessary to fulfill a second Trump administration agenda,\u201d Marcus L. Hill, president of the Senior Executives Association, said by email.<\/p>\n
Without competitive hiring and with increased ability to fire feds faster, administration officials would have more power to stock agencies with political favorites \u2014 \u201cour people,\u201d in Vance\u2019s words. Importantly, civil service due process protects not just civil servants, but also the public from government actions unduly influenced by political prejudice. Even as the influential Heritage Foundation\u2019s Project 2025 calls for Schedule F to be reinstated, the right-wing think tank acknowledges the workplace protections were \u201cmeant to ensure that expert merit rather than partisan favors or personal favoritism ruled within the federal bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schedule F has drawn harsh criticism from many government experts. To treat the federal workforce \u201cas just another element of a never-ending campaign is a recipe for disaster,\u201d said Terry W. Gerton, president and CEO of the National Academy of Public Administration, said in an email. \u201cThe federal workforce serves the people, not the president, and takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Asking them to do otherwise weakens the foundations of more than 200 years of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agenda47 also would \u201crequire every federal employee to pass a new Civil Service test demonstrating an understanding of our Constitutional limited government,\u201d even as Trump seeks increased executive power. He also would relocate agencies \u201cimmediately out of Washington to places filled with patriots who love America,\u201d despite the fact that about 85 percent of feds already are outside of the D.C. region. After Trump moved Bureau of Land Management offices to Colorado during his first term, a decision which Biden reversed, the Government Accountability Office found the relocation led to staffing shortages, drove away experienced staffers and slashed diversity.<\/p>\n
Three 2018 Trump executive orders gutted federal labor organizations\u2019 ability to represent not just their members, but all the employees in a bargaining unit covered by a union contract. President Biden quickly revoked those directives when he took office. Trump\u2019s agenda section on his dismantling of the deep state doesn\u2019t specifically mention the orders, but Project 2025 declared they \u201cshould be reinstated by the next Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
That thought leaves labor leaders like Randy L. Erwin shuddering. \u201cTrump signed three executive orders that collectively wrecked labor-relations in the federal sector,\u201d said the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. \u201cIt is scary to think what a second Trump Administration would attempt do to inflict pain on federal employees and their unions. \u2026 Trump didn\u2019t have his act together to wreak havoc last time around. He\u2019s got his plan ready this time. It\u2019s called Project 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two unions that rated Vance on his legislative record gave him abysmal ratings: 29 percent by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and 13 percent by the American Federation of Government Employees.<\/p>\n
Although Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, it is led by director Paul Dans, an Office of Personnel Management chief of staff under Trump. Spencer Chretien, a Project 2025 associate director, was a Trump White House associate director of presidential personnel. Furthermore, the initiative\u2019s chapter related to the federal workforce was co-authored by Dans and advocates for federal workforce policies that have been vigorously pushed by Trump and Republicans generally for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cContractors are less expensive,\u201d Project 2025 says, echoing a familiar Republican argument for reducing the federal workforce, \u201cbecause they are not entitled to high government pensions or benefits and are easier to fire and discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defending government workers, while harshly criticizing \u201cthe plot to demonize their service,\u201d NTEU President Doreen Greenwald summed up Trump\u2019s and Heritage\u2019s workforce plans by saying \u201cnever in NTEU\u2019s history have federal employees been the target of such a coordinated attack on their integrity, their qualifications, their patriotism and their dedication. \u2026 These extremists try to politicize the civil service for their own political gain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While Donald Trump\u2019s agenda and a massive think tank document clearly indicate his second-term strategy for federal workers, nothing captures those plans as succinctly as a statement made by his running mate. If Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, were to give Trump \u201cone piece of advice,\u201d he said in 2021, it would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6788,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}