The federal government has reduced its workforce by 300,000 jobs since Jan. 20, 2025, bringing it down to a still-bulky 2.7 million employees.
Not since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society vastly expanded the scope of the national government has the federal workforce been at this level.
asserted
workforce → reduce → level
It’s not merely that the feds have shed superfluous jobs — there are still over 4 million contract workers, after all.
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feds → ’ → jobs
It’s that the White House has been targeting all the right institutions.
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House → ’ → institutions
The bloated War Department, with over 61,000 departures, and the equally bloated State Department, with 37% of its staff gone, experienced the biggest reductions.
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% → go → reductions
But most of the buyouts were aimed at agencies and departments that should have been shuttered a long time ago.
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that → aim → agencies
Take the US Agency for International Development, which for years was used to funnel billions to hard-left ideological projects around the world: Virtually its entire staff is gone.
asserted
staff → take → world
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the unaccountable bureaucratic brainchild of progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has lost roughly 88% of its workers, though it’s still far too big.
asserted
it → lose → workers
The Agriculture Department, which despite its name is principally a welfare agency that has little to do with farming, experienced tens of thousands of departures.
asserted
that → have → departures
So has another welfare-state institution, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, whose most notable achievement has been helping inflate housing prices.
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achievement → have → prices
Not every agency is being clipped fast enough, though.
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agency → clip → ?
Early in his term, Trump signed an executive order directing the dismantling of the Education Department — yet this intrusive agency, which spends its time propping up unions and undermining local initiatives, has lost only 40% of its staff.
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which → sign → staff
Every time Republicans threaten to cut federal jobs, though they rarely follow through, Democrats predict that society will be plunged into chaos and high unemployment.
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society → threaten → chaos
It’s at 4.2% today.
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It → ’ → %
Barely anyone, one suspects, has noticed that the federal workforce has shrunk by around 11%.
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workforce → suspect → %
They probably wouldn’t notice if it shrank by another 11%.
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it → notice → %
What Democrats really fear is losing power.
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fear → fear → power
“This is an attempt at intimidation,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) complained when the Office of Management and Budget released a memo instructing agencies to plan for large-scale layoffs.
“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since Day 1 — not to govern, but to scare.”
Why would Democrats be “scared” of a leaner federal workforce?
We don’t know how government employees vote, but we can make an educated guess.
Around 84% of campaign donations from federal workers went to Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.
Federal civilian jobs rose by over 130,000 under the Biden administration.
Around 11% of the approximately 16 million US jobs added during Biden’s term were federal, state and local government jobs.
Roughly 15% of the total US workforce, around 24 million people, still works for the government at all levels.
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% → complain → levels
There is more that can be done, not only in trimming the federal workforce but also in decentralizing and dispersing it.
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that → be → it
Trump promised to relocate more federal jobs out of the Washington area — the political class entrenched around the capital in Virginia and Maryland keeps voting to empower itself.
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class → promise → itself
It should be dispersed as much as possible.
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It → disperse → ?
In 2001, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist famously proclaimed that his goal was to shrink the federal government until it was small enough to “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
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it → proclaim → bathtub
We’ve learned over the years that it doesn’t work that way: Neither party has any plan to curb spending, and voters don’t seem to be clamoring for one.
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voters → learn → one
Shrinking the federal bureaucracy and workforce isn’t going to restrain massive deficit spending and our economy-threatening, turbocharged debt.
asserted
Shrinking → shrink → spending
Still, paring down the size, scope and intrusiveness of a swollen federal government, even if it’s just temporary until Democrats come back into power, is a win for taxpayers.
asserted
Democrats → par → taxpayers
The Aporia
