Associated Press
Federal agencies must develop plans to eliminate employee positions, according to a memo distributed by President Donald Trump’s administration that sets in motion what could become a sweeping realignment of American government.
The memo expands the Republican President’s effort to downsize the federal workforce, which he has described as bloated and impediment to his agenda. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now his administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.
Agencies are directed to submit by March 13 their plans for what is known as a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate the position altogether. The result could be extensive changes in how government functions.
“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt,” said the memo from Russell Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency. “At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public.”
Trump foreshadowed this goal in an executive order that he signed with Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who is advising Trump on overhauling the government.
The order said agency leaders “shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force,” or RIF.
The General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, told employees on Monday that a reduction in force was underway and they would do “everything in our power to make your departure fair and dignified.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “all of the Cabinet secretaries take the advice and direction of DOGE.”
“They’ll be providing updates on their efforts, and they’ll also be providing updates on what they’re doing at their agencies in terms of policies and implementing the promises that the president made on the campaign trail,” Leavitt said.
Musk has caused turmoil within the federal workforce, most recently by demanding that employees justify their jobs or risk getting fired. OPM later said that the edict was voluntary.
The memo came as Trump prepared for the first Cabinet meeting of his second term. He planned to include Musk, who oversees the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
38 comments
Michael K
February 26, 2025 at 1:15 pm
If Republicans were so concerned about the debt, they would not renew and expand the tax cuts that benefitted the top 5% and added more than $7.8 trillion to the deficit under Trump. In fact, the federal government has outsourced many functions via contracts – the actual federal workforce percentage is about the same as during WW II although the US population has expanded exponentially.
This is not about cutting costs – this is a political purge and an attempt to destroy the Civil Service in favor of cronyism with political hacks.
But wait until the MAGA hats see their Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security cut.
Peachy
February 26, 2025 at 3:33 pm
There needs to be a purge at the Fed. Lots of dead weight there. Call it what you want, but the taxpayers want this.
Ocean Joe
February 27, 2025 at 9:44 am
You’re dodging. What’s the point of reducing the cost of government if you’re going to use that as cover to pass a $4.6 trillion dollar tax cut. If the plan is actually to reduce our deficit why wouldn’t you limit tax cuts to the middle class?
Of course that’s not the plan at all.
In addition to rewarding the wealthy, the guy who loves tariffs is now going to spend $1,000,000,000 to import eggs.
JD
February 27, 2025 at 3:01 pm
He’s a paid shill and he always dodges when called out with logic.
Peachy
February 27, 2025 at 3:40 pm
I wish I was paid. I do this as a public service. Not avoiding anything. The Government is bloated. There are thousands sitting around doing nothing. You know what TSA stands for right? Thousands Standing Around. That’s just one example.
JD
February 27, 2025 at 3:54 pm
Was that the thought process the weeks after 9/11? If you have a better solution, I am sure people are all ears.
Martha Barton
February 28, 2025 at 4:47 pm
Start today and have your first payment at the end of the week…
simple it was >>> click My Profile
cassandra was right
February 27, 2025 at 10:58 am
Please provide citations supporting this nonsense. Extra credit if you can explain to the class why firing IRS experts during tax season is a good idea.
Martha Barton
February 28, 2025 at 4:45 pm
HELLO
Oscar
February 26, 2025 at 8:00 pm
Nice try, but not…. Comparing the current number of federal employees to what it was at the end of WWII is idiotic. Federal employment exploded during WWII due almost entirely to the military build up. It also more than tripled during the aftermath of the Great Depression.
Michael
February 26, 2025 at 1:55 pm
RIFs will certainly reduce payroll costs after severance periods are over, but do exactly NOTHING to improve EFFICIENCY. You just have less people doing the same process over a longer period of time….which, if you have a lick of common sense you know is the best way to increase INEFFICIENCY.
If you don’t re-engineer a process first to cut PROCESS TIME, you show your complete ignorance on the subject. DOGE should be renamed to what it actually is DOGG…Department of Government Garbage. It may cost less, but you don’t make anything better.
Skeptic
February 26, 2025 at 3:29 pm
All this Doge stuff is pure theatrics and will not result in any significant savings to taxpayers — the latest is that by ripping up negotiated price caps they expose the government to more waste, fraud and abuse. If they were serious, they would be cutting defense programs or talking about raising revenue to pay our bills. Instead, they are successfully having the media chase squirrels while they cut deals to favor donors (e.g., tax cuts, buying Tesla’s “trucks” that they can’t unload on consumers, giving Elon a contract to do to planes what he has done to rockets, etc.) and shake down our allies (which will cause us to have fewer when we need them). No way to run a railroad. Next comes the threat of defaults — refusing to pay interest on contracted debt is a sure way to lower cash out the door, but generally has bad consequences.
Peachy
February 26, 2025 at 9:27 pm
Shake down our allies? Well many NATO nations needed a stern talking to by the US. Many had not contributed the minimum 2% of GDP for years. Trump called em out on his last administration. Many came around but barely meet the minimum. There are still 8 or so member states that do not comply. Remember without the US there is no NATO. The Europeans need to step up.
PeterH
February 26, 2025 at 4:17 pm
If Trump offered most Americans five million dollars to leave the United States….. he would have TENS OF MILLIONS OF REQUESTS in the first hour of his notice.
Actually, it might be cost effective in the long run.
🤡🤡
Peachy
February 27, 2025 at 4:18 pm
Then again all those Hollywood elites that left or threatened to leave are all back. Hilarious Peter H.
Michael K
February 27, 2025 at 1:30 am
Fun fact: Federal government salaries are about 5% of the federal budget expense. The massive firings will add to unemployment but do nothing to address deficit concerns.
Cutting taxes for the top 5% does nothing for working people. Don’t be shocked when they go after Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Josh Green
February 27, 2025 at 1:19 pm
Exactly this. These cuts will simply be catastrophic to the US economy. I see an actual economic depression coming under Trump.
Andy
February 27, 2025 at 5:24 am
Medicaid , Medicare, social security and defense add the 2 trillion we owe china is what comprises the majority of the budget. You need to fix this … we have a revenue problem as well. Cutting these jobs is going to do nothing to help put a dent in the 36 trillion dollar deficit .. we need a balanced approach and tax breaks for the wealthy does not help. We put humans on the moon , cured diseases and created the greatest country in the world and these elected officials on both sides can’t balance a budget!!!
Ocean Joe
February 27, 2025 at 9:47 am
We put humans on the moon, and we put a moron in the White House. He breaks things, fixes nothing.
Impeach Musk
February 27, 2025 at 2:31 pm
As a friend of mine from overseas said to me the other day, If you hate clowns so much, why do you keep going to the circus? I really don’t have a good answer.
Peachy
February 27, 2025 at 9:47 pm
Wow a friend that lives overseas. Are we suppose to be impressed by that? Tell your friend to clean up his own mess where he lives before he starts throwing stones at the US.
JD
February 27, 2025 at 10:28 pm
It’s very clever. Reagans big tent has devolved into the freak show.
You see shill, we’re living a dytopian novel now. Not coming soon. But now.
The numerous conflicts of interests between Musk and the government contracts, the bad people that are being allowed back in the country, the alignment with North Korea, Russia, and China on foreign policy. Are you just evil for agreeing with them or dumb? I give you the benefit of the doubt on the later, so that leaves Evil.
Impeach Musk
February 28, 2025 at 3:48 pm
Yo Peachy, maybe you’re still living in your parents basement but some of us get get out and about a bit and actually visit other countries. Most of the foreigners I know don’t have a mess to clean up – then again, with Ivan Trumpski in the WH, it’s probably only a matter of time.
Peachy
March 1, 2025 at 7:20 am
Dear Impeach Musk.
Not only have I traveled all over the world, I also lived overseas as well. Nice try though.
Peachy
February 27, 2025 at 9:40 pm
You must be talking about Biden or Harris. Which one or both?
Impeach Putin
March 1, 2025 at 7:13 am
You’re starting to sound like you have a touch of EOD. Sitting in a corner mumbling to yourself … “what about Biden & Harris? … what about Biden & Harris?”
Josh Green
February 27, 2025 at 1:18 pm
Mark my words. These layoffs WILL collapse the US economy and drive us into a deep recession or worse. 100%. I can guarantee it.
The economy can’t absorb that many suddenly unemployed people all at once. And all of these suddenly jobless people will have no more spending power to purchase goods and services from private companies. The ripple effect of this will be catastrphic.
But that’s what the Magat’s voted for, because Trump supporters hate America and are actively trying to destroy it.
Oscar
March 1, 2025 at 8:26 am
Laying off unelected, taxpayer funded bureaucrats that contribute absolutely nothing whatsoever to the economy will have a huge positive impact. Excessive and meddlesome regulation will go right along with them as will trillions in squandered taxpayer dollars.
Impeach Musk
February 27, 2025 at 2:33 pm
I guess all my six sigma training was wrong. Silly me thought you had to analyze a process, identify the defects, work up solutions on paper, suggest new processes, demonstrate how they’d work then implement them and go back and prove mathematically that they achieved the objective. I guess if you’re a billionaire, you can just go around making stuff up and fire all the people you’d hired in the first place and completely screw them and their families over in the process.
Everything (people & processes) should be looked at as a daily part of the job but is there really a need to be complete a-holes about it?
JD
February 27, 2025 at 10:33 pm
No, having six-sigma training myself, most corporatations use that as a dodge to heinous stuff to the worker – f@ck Jack Welsh (but Deming was the real father of that stuff).
To Musk the worker is a commodity, an extracted resources. It doesn’t have to be. Sustainable business can work and did work. We had it in the USA until the end of the 1970’s. And prior to that the economy thrived. Trump is just Musk’s fool. Hell, I bet Trump doesn’t know where he is half the time, just waiting on his next diaper change. Anyone see the exchange with Johnson about the LPG exports?
Peachy
February 28, 2025 at 5:52 am
Confused again JD? It was Biden that was mumbling, stumbling, sluring his words as he struggled to read the teleprompter. He had to enter AF 1 hrough the lower entry point. He could no longer make it up those stairs. He is simply the worst President we have had in this country for a looooooooong time. Again Jimmy Carter thanks you and the rest of the zombies for getting that monkey off his back.
JD
February 28, 2025 at 9:02 am
You need to read the presidential rankings again. Trump is in that bottom 5 as we keep reminding you. Simply the WORST president (Trump) in my lifetime. But you’d know this if you read the back of your Cult47 membership card.
Peachy
February 28, 2025 at 1:17 pm
You can read anything you want to on the internet. Come on! Biden was an idiot and Kammy wasn’t any better.
Peachy
February 28, 2025 at 6:30 am
Six Sigma Training? Take an online course and put a diploma in the wall. BFD. Pay your fee and get your paper. Hilarious. A shoe clerks dream come true.🤣
Impeach Musk
February 28, 2025 at 7:12 am
You’re a smarmy little bastard but if selling shoes is your thing, just keep doing you. It’s probably a safer job than working for the government these days. Glad your dreams are coming true.
JD
February 28, 2025 at 9:00 am
Isn’t all education that way? Pay the fee, take the course(s), get the diploma (assuming you pass)? Since you state the obvious, but got the order incorrect, I guess you don’t have any education?
Impeach Musk
February 28, 2025 at 11:46 am
Neutron Jack paid for mine, GB and MBB. It wasn’t really optional but it did give me some insight of how things work at scale. I’ve not really seen any evidence of anything other than magical thinking from Musk and his Muskateers though which is pretty disturbing on many levels. They’re like kids playing in the kitchen and we’re all going to get burned.
Peachy
February 28, 2025 at 1:17 pm
Sorry to disappoint but I have plenty of education.
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