Trump is right to shrink our government. Even if I worry about how he'll do it. | Opinion
The U.S. government has reached a level of bloat that needs to be dealt with. Trump is right to take that challenge head-on.
The Trump administration received a huge win from the Supreme Court on July 14, allowing the government to proceed with its plan to fire more than 1,300 employees of the Department of Education. These staffing cuts come in addition to the State Department's recent layoffs of a similar size.
I have been a critic of many of the government efficiency measures proposed by the Trump administration, not because I oppose shrinking government, but rather because they have been unlikely to succeed in achieving that goal.
Many opponents of the Republican plan to downsize government don’t come from my perspective. Many oppose the slashing of current government programs because the result is seen as unfair to government employees. But it is not immoral for the government to cut jobs for the sake of efficiency. Pursuing efficiency at the expense of existing jobs is a proper goal, even if how President Donald Trump is chasing that efficiency needs to be examined.
Layoffs are hard, but that's no reason for government to stay bloated
Fired State Department workers made a show out of their job loss this week, staging a sort of ceremony in the lobby as people packed up their desks. Teary federal employees made for great publicity for Democrats opposed to Trump’s plans.
Many believe that the human toll of these layoffs is a sufficient reason not to implement them at all. That view is significantly mistaken, and one of the reasons government bloat has reached its current level.
Layoffs are difficult, but good companies do them all the time. While the common maxim that “government should be run like a business” is often a ridiculous one, the attitude toward laying off workers in bloated departments ought to be the same among Americans as among managers at a Fortune 500 company.
When it comes to publicly traded companies, nobody disputes the right of a company to fire its employees for the sake of efficiency. In fact, it is their obligation. Even the charge that corporate layoffs are driven by greed tends to favor the layoffs when it comes to the government. Where a corporation may lay off workers in pursuit of maximizing profits, the government doing the same thing serves to decrease expenditures compared to revenue, which means lower budget deficits.
I understand why the robotic calculation of reducing people's employment to a cost-benefit analysis is off-putting to some, but it's the sort of thing that is necessary when our federal workforce is far larger than it was ever intended to be. Cutting excessive positions is a sign of good governance.
Again, I understand that being out of work sucks and that layoffs produce hard times for these employees and their families. I have plenty of sympathy for individuals going through tough times because of all this. The administration should take care not to callously celebrate shoving people out of their jobs, a caveat they are horribly failing at.
Critics should focus on the 'how' of Trump's layoffs
All of this is good in theory, but as with most things, the Trump administration has done little to earn the benefit of the doubt on the matter. Their approach looks more like pulling wires out of a machine on a whim than it does a butcher trimming fat precisely. The administration has already had to walk back many of the firings that took place under Elon Musk's DOGE initiative, signaling that they had gone too far in some instances.
There is plenty of opposition that can be raised regarding the "how" of the push to slash government bloat. However, this is not the sentiment that is sometimes being shared. Many are arguing that it is a mistake, or even immoral, for the Trump administration to perform layoffs, even if they do genuinely lead to cutting government waste.
If the government is genuinely slashing necessary employees, then by all means, that position ought to be refilled. Layoffs go too far all the time, and those companies rehire for positions as needed. However, it is all the more likely that the federal government can do without many of these jobs, and if not, then the administration has already shown an indication that it will refill vital roles.
Government is not a jobs program; it is meant to do a select number of things with the smallest intrusion into our lives possible. Those who oppose Trump's actions with regard to federal layoffs should focus on critiquing how he is going about these cuts, rather than arguing against the cuts themselves.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for Paste BN and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.