President Donald Trump signed an
executive order Tuesday setting the stage for “large-scale” layoffs and requiring federal agencies to further aid the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency with the governmental streamlining process, further empowering the Elon Musk-led outfit.
The order titled “Implementing the president’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ workforce optimization initiative” builds on Trump’s
Jan. 20 order establishing the DOGE and requires federal agency heads to make “preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with applicable law, and to separate from Federal service temporary employees and re-employed annuitants working in areas that will likely be subject to the RIFs.”
In the order, Trump tasked Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought with producing a master plan outlining how to reduce the federal bureaucracy through “efficiency improvements and attrition.” The plan must require that each agency can hire only one employee for every four employees kicked to the curb — a ratio that won’t apply to jobs related to immigration, public safety, or law enforcement.
Agency heads must in turn develop hiring plans in consultation with the DOGE team leader assigned to their agency, ensuring the strategic and timely placement of new career appointment hires as well as continued absences in positions the DOGE figures better left unmanned.
Trump further made clear that offices that “perform functions not mandated by statute or other law,” especially those surviving offices that engage in DEI initiatives, should be prioritized for house cleaning.
‘It’s just something we’ve got to fix.’
Agency heads are permitted under the order to exempt any position deemed essential to meeting the nation’s security or public safety responsibilities.
The stated purpose of the order is to get the ball rolling on a “critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy” in the interest of “eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity” and empowering the American people.
According to the Washington Post, by adhering to Trump’s hiring-firing ratio and eliminating 25% of federal employees, the administration could cut the overall budget by roughly 1%.
Elon Musk, present for Trump’s signing of the order,
noted after interruptions from his young son, “You cannot have an autonomous federal bureaucracy. You have to have one that is responsive to the people. That is the whole point of a democracy.”
“We had this unelected fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has in a lot of ways currently more power than any elected representative,” continued Musk. “It’s just something we’ve got to fix.”
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