Trump never promised mass federal layoffs, and they won't fulfill his agenda, either
Concerns about government inefficiency did not even make the list. Months into the new administration, however, one of its top priorities is improving government efficiency, and its basic approach is to reduce the size of government through mass layoffs. The assumption seems to be that the government can operate just as efficiently with fewer employees.
But what if that assumption is wrong? What if our government is inefficient not because it has too many employees, but has too many employees because it is so inefficient?
All of us interact with the government at different levels, and all of us know the feeling of being caught in a maze of dead ends.
Years ago, my company tried to purchase one-tenth of an acre of land from the New York State Thruway Authority to put up a sign. The parcel was completely landlocked, and the authority no longer needed it.
When we asked the authority how long it would take to buy the land, they said five years, which we found hard to imagine. It took over six.
From start to finish, we found the process unbelievably frustrating. But we didn't come away wishing the authority had fewer employees. We came away angry that the state legislature, which established the authority and sets rules for its operation, takes no interest in how it actually works.
For the federal government, Congress sets the rules. Congress may include specific rules for the executive branch to follow in carrying out its legislation, or it may delegate large areas of rule-making to the agencies themselves.
Either way, the number and complexity of agency rules are key factors in determining how many people government agencies employ and whether they can efficiently deliver results. Moreover, new regulations are often layered on top of old ones without any thought of how they will work together.
Another factor in making government work is the strength or weakness of its information systems. In 'Recoding America,' Jennifer Pahlka examines why high-minded policies so often fail to deliver on their goals.
Sometimes, bad results are front-page news, such as the crash of healthcare.gov when people tried to enroll in health care exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. More often, however, government systems deliver results in ways that are slow, confusing and frustrating, both for employees providing services and for people trying to use them.
Part of the problem, again, is 'layers of policy, regulation, procedure and process that have accrued over decades,' making any technology hard to use. But Pahlka found overlaps in technology as well, with some systems dating back to the 1980s.
Comparing new technologies to layers of paint, she writes that each new addition 'depends on everything that came before it, so each successive layer is constrained by the limitations of the earlier technologies.' Over time, the layers become so complex and brittle that the paint finally cracks.
For people offering tech support to the federal government, overhauling this patchwork of systems would be a good place to start. After decades of deferred maintenance, however, fixing it will not save money in the short term.
Improvements will be costly, time-consuming, and will require hanging on to the few employees who still know how everything works, rather than offering blanket early retirement incentives and imposing mass layoffs.
A serious effort to make government work better would begin with these two steps: peeling back layers of complex regulations and updating the technologies needed to deliver better results.
Cutting jobs without taking these steps first won't create efficiencies. Instead, it will leave fewer people in place to do the same amount of work. Furthermore, sudden cuts to ongoing programs and capital projects create their own type of waste by disrupting supply chains, investment decisions and hiring commitments.
Devoting so much energy to layoffs and funding cuts also takes attention away from the issues that helped decide the 2024 election in the first place.
On immigration, the administration can take credit for the large drop in illegal crossings at the southern border. But on other issues, including employment-based immigration and the fate of more than 11 million people already living illegally in the U.S., public opinion is far more divided, and these problems cannot be fixed by executive orders alone because responsibility for immigration laws rests with Congress, not the executive branch.
Relying solely on executive orders will leave the administration liable to claims that it is both overreaching its authority and, in a grim sort of protection scheme, shielding Republican members of Congress from voting on difficult issues.
The prospects for curbing inflation are no better. Tariffs, tax cuts, reduced immigrant labor and pressures on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low all work against the promise to keep inflation in check.
Recognizing the trade-offs, a frustrated President Trump said in March that he 'couldn't care less' about higher car prices. Voters who were concerned about inflation last November may not agree.
Howard Konar is co-owner of a family real estate development company in Rochester, New York and author of 'Common Ground, An Alternative to Partisan Politics.'
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USA Today
21 minutes ago
- USA Today
Congress passed Trump's spending cuts. What does that mean for their power of the purse?
A drama-filled week in DC saw Democrats accuse Republicans ceding Congress' power to Trump and a curveball involving Jeffrey Epstein. WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump is racking up legislative wins with the help of a Republican-controlled Congress. Not without a touch of drama and complaining, though. Republicans in the House and Senate this week approved $9 billion worth of spending cuts, targeted at public broadcasting and foreign aid programs, sending the bill on to Trump's desk for his signature into law. Made at Trump's request, the canceling of federal funding represents just a slice of the almost $200 billion the Department of Government Efficiency, once spearheaded by Elon Musk, claims to have cut from the federal budget. More: Rural PBS stations could bear brunt of public media cuts. Just ask those in Kansas Still, agencies like the World Health Organization and U.S. Agency for International Development, who use federal grants to support things like global health initiatives and peacekeeping efforts, will feel the impacts. The cuts could also be a potential death knell for local PBS and NPR stations across the country, who rely heavily on government funds to keep the lights on and the public in the know. For Trump, the legislative victory represents an unusual ceding of authority from one branch of the U.S. government to another, as Congress typically tightly guards its Constitutionally-given power of the purse rather than taking the lead from the White House. Adding to the intrigue: Republican leadership faced a big challenge in trying to advance the Trump-requested package of spending cuts while dealing with an unrelated series of other topics − namely Jeffrey Epstein − that cast a shadow over everything on Capitol Hill. Here are three key takeaways from this rare congressional scene. Pickpocketing the power of the purse Congress previously approved the specific spending totals that they just clawed back in a bill that Trump signed into law in March. The decision to then revoke $9 billion (a relatively small amount in the scope of the $1.6 trillion federal budget) is rare and unusual. The last time the legislative branch made such a move was in 1999, when Democratic President Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his second term. More: Lawmakers warn Trump he can't 'pick and choose' what to spend from funding bill The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, a privilege and responsibility its elected lawmakers protect fiercely. Democrats have accused their Republican colleagues of ceding that power to the president with measures like the recent spending cuts, as well as a sweeping tax, spending and policy bill passed earlier in July at Trump's urging. They also see it as a winning issue on the campaign trail next year. 'This is absolutely going to frame the 2026 election,' Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, told USA TODAY earlier this month. 'They have decided to cave in completely to Donald Trump and the wishes of the billionaire class. More: Dismantling agencies and firing workers: How Trump is redefining relations with Congress and courts Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, defended the move in an interview with Politico. "The rescissions process," he said, referring to the action taken this week, "actually considers the legislature's role in what the executive branch is identifying as waste, fraud and abuse, and that's what we're doing right now." How Jeffrey Epstein factored into debate An entirely unrelated debate threatened to derail the process of the House approving the spending cuts. Lawmakers were facing a July 18 midnight deadline to see the rescissions legislation pass through Congress, otherwise the federal funding would need to be spent as mandated by law. But moving quickly became a challenge as Trump and his MAGA base started sparring over the Justice Department's Epstein case file review, a fight that spilled into the halls of Congress and took Republicans' attention away from the impending spending vote. With the deadline fast approaching, a key House committee eventually came to an agreement to placate its Republican members, at least for the time being, without angering Trump, who has asked his supporters to move on from the heated issue. House Republicans crafted a non-binding resolution, meaning if passed Trump and his administration would not be required to comply, calling for the release of files related to Epstein's case. GOP leadership has not indicated when or if this resolution would come up for a vote on the House floor. More spending fights to come Trump and the GOP can expect more headaches as Congress tackles additional spending debates before year's end. Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought suggested midweek there may be more spending cuts to come. "There is still a great enthusiasm" for these bills, Vought said at a July 17 event. Speaking to reporters on July 18, deputy White House chief of staff James Blair said some of the items in the White House sights include "everything that just doesn't come aboard with the president's agenda, that doesn't make sense, really just taxpayer waste." But even Republican senators, already weary from this week's process, have warned that they would want the White House to provide much more detail in any future proposals. "I hope this is just a warm up for what should be tens of billions of dollars worth of rescissions," Thom Tillis said July 15, before the Senate vote. "I think we need to get it right." There is also the looming prospect of a government shutdown, if Congress does not act in time to pass its annual appropriations bills before a September 30 deadline. With both chambers out for recess through August, Republicans have less than six weeks to make it happen. It will require bipartisan support, a daunting task given partisan tension that were only heightened by the recent spending cut process and ongoing complaints against passing a continuing resolution as the alternative.
Atlantic
22 minutes ago
- Atlantic
A Congress That Votes Yes and Hopes No
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In fall 1963, as President Lyndon B. Johnson struggled to pass the Civil Rights Act, some allies warned him that the success wouldn't be worth the electoral hit he'd take. Johnson was insistent that the point of winning elections was to push the policies he wanted. 'Well, what the hell's the presidency for?' he said. No one would have to ask President Donald Trump that question. His vision of power is dangerous but clear, and he's wasted little time in implementing it. One reason he's been so successful is that members of the House and Senate seem to have no idea what the hell the Congress is for. The past few weeks have seen Republican members of Congress wringing their hands furiously over bills under consideration, criticizing the White House's legislative priorities … and then voting for them. The most torturous, and tortuous, example is Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a prominent member of the supposedly populist wing of MAGA Republicans. On June 28, Hawley criticized Medicaid cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the form of work requirements. 'If you want to be a working-class party, you've got to deliver for working-class people,' he said. 'You cannot take away health care from working people.' Three days later, on July 1, he voted for a bill that did exactly that. It also cut funding to rural hospitals, and yet, a few days later, he told NBC News, 'I think that if Republicans don't come out strong and say we're going to protect rural hospitals, then, yeah, I think voters aren't going to like that.' 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Murkowski is perhaps the spiritual founder of a Vote Yes/Hope No Caucus. She has plenty of company. Her comrades were out in force for this week's vote on rescissions, retroactive budget cuts requested by the White House and approved by Congress. Some members worry that acceding to the rescissions is effectively surrendering the power of the purse to the executive branch. 'I don't have any problem with reducing spending. We're talking about not knowing,' complained Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the former Senate majority leader. 'They would like a blank check, is what they would like. And I don't think that's appropriate. I think they ought to make the case.' McConnell voted for the bill. 'I suspect we're going to find out there are some things that we're going to regret,' North Carolina's Thom Tillis, ostensibly freed up by his decision not to run for reelection, said on Wednesday. If only there were some way to avoid that! 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The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
GOP senator asks Pentagon for information on Microsoft's Chinese engineers
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Thursday pressed the Defense Department for information about Microsoft's reported use of Chinese engineers to help maintain the agency's computer systems. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cotton pointed to recent reporting from ProPublica that Microsoft relies on Chinese engineers, who are overseen by U.S. citizens with security clearances known as 'digital escorts.' 'While this arrangement technically meets the requirement that U.S. citizens handle sensitive data, digital escorts often do not have the technical training or expertise needed to catch malicious code or suspicious behavior,' Cotton wrote. 'The U.S. government recognizes that China's cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by infiltration of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains,' he added. 'DoD must guard against all potential threats within its supply chain, including from those subcontractors.' The Arkansas Republican requested information from Hegseth about the Pentagon's contractors and subcontractors who hire Chinese personnel or digital escorts, as well as recommendations for closing loopholes in the security requirements for government cloud providers. China-linked hackers have been tied to numerous high-profile breaches in the U.S. over the past year. The group known as Salt Typhoon has compromised at least nine telecommunications firms. One state's National Guard network was also hacked for nearly a year, according to a recent memo from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by NBC News.
