Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate running for the Republican presidential nomination, aims to reduce the number of federal government civilian employees by 1 million if he is elected as the President in 2024.
Mr. Ramaswamy has proposed cuts for the Department of Education, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the IRS and the Commerce Department.
He aims to decrease the federal workforce, which currently employs 2.2 million individuals, by 75% within four years, starting with a 50% reduction within the first year.
“He informed Axios that it should be noted that 30% of these employees will be able to retire within the next five years. It is a significant number, without a doubt, but it is not as extreme as it may initially sound.”
He revealed the plan prior to a meeting scheduled for Wednesday at the America First Policy Institute.
Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign emphasizes the need for a complete overhaul of the federal bureaucracy. During an interview with NBC in July, he expressed his intention to restructure the existing federal agencies.
“Often, these agencies duplicate tasks that are already carried out by other departments within the federal government,” stated Mr. Ramaswamy. “Having such redundancy is a breeding ground for corruption, as well as wastefulness, deceit, and misuse.”
He contended that the president possesses the power to implement these reductions in non-military federal positions using executive order, without needing approval from Congress. He intended to inform the Institute on Wednesday that the safeguard of “for cause” protection would not shield federal employees from a large-scale layoff authorized by executive order.
Former President Donald Trump tried to do something similar back in 2020, by working to reinstate the “Schedule F” executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees and make it easier to fire them.
