WASHINGTON — I don’t like the way President Donald Trump abruptly fired swaths of federal workers during his first weeks back in office. But I know why he did it this way.
Trump campaigned on a promise to cut the size of government — and this go-round, he’s actually doing it.
The administration has offered buyout packages, which some 77,000 federal workers have accepted, eliminated thousands more jobs, and instituted a 90-day freeze on foreign aid, now an issue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Richard Stern, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told me he would prefer a thoughtful mechanism for targeting and eliminating wasteful spending. But what Trump has done the past month “is the only option left open.”
Much of the focus in Washington has been on the Agency for International Development, after the Trump administration laid off around 2,000 employees — or some 20 percent of USAID’s workforce.
Laid-off workers have held protests in front of the USAID headquarters — located inside a piece of prime D.C. real estate, the stately Ronald Reagan Building — as they’ve appeared leaving their offices, hauling boxes of belongings and talking to reporters about the harsh reality of having 15 minutes to pack up their personal things.
“The Trump administration only gave them 15 minutes to be able to go in and get all their possessions and leave, and telling them never to come back,” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said during a video he recorded in front of the Ronald Reagan Building and posted on X. Kim got his start in government working at USAID.
About those 15 minutes. I’m stuck at the selective outrage in this story.
Anyone who has worked for a corporation knows that when a company fires and lays off workers, it’s a standard practice to get them out the door without incident. Those 15 minutes cut down on the drama and opportunities for mischief.
So when I watched Kim, I couldn’t help but think about workers in the private sector who lose their jobs with little fanfare and no expectation that news stories will get them re-employed.
Starbucks just announced it was cutting 1,100 employees. Grubhub announced it is laying off more than 20 percent of its workforce. Earlier this month, Chevron announced it will lay off 15 percent to 20 percent of its global workforce by the end of 2026.
Workers in the private sector generally don’t expect their jobs to last until they are ready to move on. Now it’s time for public-sector workers to understand that their jobs aren’t guaranteed for life.
Let me get back to USAID, which made itself an easy target for Trump. An agency that was supposed to fund food, housing and other humanitarian assistance also blew money on consultants to teach people in Africa about climate change ($520 million), teach folks in Kazakhstan how to fight internet trolls ($4.5 million), and fund a $20,000 program to help LBGT individuals vote in Honduras.
The U.S. national debt exceeds $36 trillion. That’s more than $270,000 per household.
“You’re talking about decades and decades” of overspending, Stern noted. As far as he is concerned, Trump “is demonstrating leadership.”
Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders X.