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(WATCH) Telework
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When President Trump took office for a second term, there were about 2.3 million civilian federal employees about the size of the population of New Mexico. Never before have they, as a group, been so shaken up. Under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency, they’ve been told: The Party’s Over. But some insist there was never a party to begin with and the downsizing will have disastrous results. Today’s cover story is: Back to Work.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
Monday, February 24th could be marked down as D-Day in the Trump administration’s efforts to drastically downsize and upgrade the federal workforce.
“Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave,” warned Elon Musk. Musk leads the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Four days earlier, there was Musk waving a chainsaw at a conservative conference, symbolizing the slashing of government jobs, spending, and bureaucracy. Meantime, the clock was ticking on another February 24th deadline, for federal employees to email five bullet points telling what they’d accomplished the prior week.
“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” wrote Musk on X, with Trump speaking to it later that day.
President Donald Trump (February 24): I thought it was great. There was a lot of genius in sending it. If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working.
The moves to downsize the federal workforce are sparking protests and court challenges. And drawing ire from Randy Erwin, who heads up the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union representing 110,000 workers.
Randy Erwin: How big should our government be? How much should we be spending on these services? There’s nothing wrong with that, but for the folks that want less government, less spending lower taxes, also it turns into just a criticism of federal employees. No matter what, they will not say anything good about federal workers, no matter how good a service they provide to people or at good value. And so any little thing that they can harp onto that makes federal employees seem lazy or what have you, those stories have legs and so people get the wrong idea.
The dedication of some in the federal workforce has long been called into question. Critics say teleworking has been used by too many as a chance to slack off on the taxpayer dime.
The Government Accountability Office or GAO recently analyzed telework at four agencies and found it’s increasingly been offered as a perk. GAO’s Dawn Locke.
Dawn Locke: One thing in particular that was, that was interesting to me is how telework is being used as a currency. So for example, at Citizenship and Immigration Services, we saw that three times more applicants applied for positions that had at home options versus those that were in the office.
She says some agencies need to do better at measuring whatever constitutes success.
Locke: In particular, they have to evaluate their telework programs to ensure that those programs allow them to efficiently and effectively meet the needs of their mission goals as well as the needs of the American public.
For critics of telework, an investigation by Senator Joni Ernst, who leads the Senate DOGE Caucus, produced eyebrow-raising results.
Of 6,338 people who said they were federal employees, only 6% said they “report in-person on a full-time basis” and “nearly a third of the government workforce [was] entirely remote.” The stats were bolstered by an Inspector General report last October. It found that at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, 95% of 6,800 employees were either teleworking, working remotely, or were entirely mobile. Most required to report to the office just twice in two weeks.
Erwin challenges those numbers.
Erwin: So it is very much a made up problem that federal workers aren’t coming to work. That’s nonsense.
He points to a Biden administration report from last August. The Office of Management and Budget said about 46% of the federal civilian work force, or 1.1 million worked out of the office at least some. 10% of those were fully remote. But the majority, 1.2 million or 54%, worked fully on-site.
Sharyl: I think all of us know people who can be effective working at home, and we all probably know people who couldn’t be.
Erwin: Right.
Sharyl: And we wonder how the federal government discriminates or figures out are they getting the best and the most of a worker who’s not coming into the office regularly?
Erwin: Absolutely. The American taxpayers deserve to get the services that they’re paying for. But again, when they out statistics like only 6% of the federal workforce is coming to work, it seems like virtually nobody’s coming to work. But 81% of federal workdays are spent in the office overall, 81%. Really, those who are not effective at telework have come back into the office by and large. For those who are more efficient at telework, they’re continuing to telework.
Besides the crackdown on telework, the Trump administration nearly shuttered the doors of the US Agency for International Development. With an annual budget of about $50 billion and more than 10,000 employees, 9,000 were put on notice.
Government wide, the Trump administration fired 200,000 probationary employees and got 75,000 more to accept a deal to resign.
Sharyl: 75,000 government employees have taken advantage of an offer, sort of a buyout to leave their jobs and get an eight-month paid vacation. What are your thoughts about this whole process?
Erwin: It’s terrible for our country. It was in our view, a bad deal for federal employees. Our recommendation was people got to decide for themselves, but our recommendation is don’t accept it.
While President Trump is making waves today, numerous administrations have taken on the popular mantle of targeting workers and waste.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore rolled out pallets of government regulations for impact.
President Bill Clinton (March 1993): Our goal is to make the entire federal government both less expensive and more efficient. We’ll conduct an intensive national review of every single government agency and service.
The Clinton administration ultimately cut the federal workforce by over 377,000 and targeted the establishment bureaucracy sounding something like Trump and Musk more than 30 years later.
Vice President Al Gore (March 1993): The report contains hundreds of suggestions just like that one totaling $108 billion in savings over the next five years if these recommendations are enacted. It is inspired by your vision of a government that works for people, cleared of useless bureaucracy and freed of red tape and senseless rules.
As far as what American taxpayers are saving so far through personnel cuts, current estimates say the federal workforce has been shrunk by at least 12% with $30-40 billion in savings so far, per year.
Sharyl: What do you foresee in the next four or even 10 years as a result of what’s going to happen in the next four years? If government is significantly downsized, as this administration says it intends to do?
Erwin: It will be an absolute disaster in this country. It really will be.
Downsizing government continues to be popular with taxpayers. But the fact remains that in Washington, D.C., spending money creates friends and political donors. Cutting is bound to make enemies. Which is why politicians usually find it much easier to add to the budget than subtract.
Sharyl (on-camera): The Trump administration moves are the subject of multiple legal challenges. By the way, after Elon Musk bought Twitter, now X, he reportedly slashed 6,000 jobs or 80% of the original workforce within six months with many predicting that would be the end of the platform.
Watch video here.
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