We hear or read something about “DOGE” (Dept. of Govt. Efficiency) as well as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy every week. This pair of asshats and their ‘agency’ won’t be able to shut down a thing or fire anyone without Congress going voting to go along. They can however make recommendations, and talk a ‘bigly’ game and by golly they are doing so. The thing is, there aren’t nearly as many federal employees to fire as they and most people think. The federal workforce has NOT “exploded” in recent years or even decades. What HAS gone up and by a fair amount is the number of private employees working on federal contracts. Like at Musk’s Space X for example!
There’s an interesting article by CNN that got posted this morning that’s worth your time to read. It’s an eye opener because it destroys the myth of grown to massive size federal workforce. It also tackles some other myths/mistaken impressions people have about the federal workforce. Let’s start with the the increase in our population over time bearing in mind Musk was born in 1971 and Ramaswamy in 1985. In the interests of keeping things simple let’s just go back roughly forty years to the mid 1980s and all Reagan’s antics. Since then, when Ramaswamy was born the U.S. population has increased by about a hundred million people. Yet the number of federal employees has NOT gone up by any notable amount despite the constant drumbeat from conservatives and now the Dickhead Dynamic Duo of DOGE:
“The number of federal employees have skyrocketed over the past four years, especially the number that are working from home and not even coming to work,” the House Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. James Comer, told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Thursday, expressing that view.
A closer look at available data shows a variation of a few hundred thousand workers – which seems large but is not a grand expansion of the federal workforce.
The fact is, the number of employees drawing federal paychecks has been pretty much the same since all the way back in the 1960s despite a large increase in the population. (Check out the Census data) Yet the number of federal employees (when you add in postal workers) has hovered around 3 million people. And again, since Ramaswamy was born the population has gone up by a hundred million. Again however despite that there’s been relatively little change during ole Vivek’s lifetime:
There were about 2.96 million civilians, including postal workers, getting full-time paychecks from the federal government at the end of 1984, before Ramaswamy was born, and there are a hair over 3 million working for the federal government today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The official tally from the Office of Personnel Management is a smidge lower, at about 2.87 million, including postal workers.
I’ll be honest. I assumed both that there were more people on the federal payroll AND that the federal workforce had increased over time somewhat proportionally to the increase in population. As I think about it I should have known better. For decades there’s been the conservative mantra about cutting ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ from the federal budget and that includes reducing the size of government. In particular the federal workforce. Yet for all the bold talk nothing seems to happen. Could it be because those employed directly by the federal government are better, more efficient employees than conservatives like to admit?
The CNN article makes a couple of other interesting points. I like the first one in particular since there’s so much talk about eliminating agencies. There are some cabinet level agencies that are in fact pretty large but others not nearly as much as people think. Ask yourself which agency has been topping conservative’s hit list for at least a decade then consider this:
In some agencies that Republicans have said they want to shutter, there are relatively few employees – such as the smallest Cabinet-level agency, the Department of Education. It employs about 4,400 employees, according to OPM. The largest federal agencies, like Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon, employ hundreds of thousands of workers.
Another point the article makes also will probably surprise you. Most federal employees DON’T work in the DC area! About 80 percent work elsewhere and are scattered in every state. Some, for example California, Texas, Colorado and Alabama (WTF?) have particularly high numbers. What matters is the difference in the average person’s belief (fueled by conservative bullshit talking points) and actual reality.
Now, the fact is that more people rely on a paycheck funded by taxpayers than those directly employed by the federal government. Indirectly, especially via the DOD an awful lot of Americans wouldn’t have jobs and paychecks if the money wasn’t coming from Uncle Sam. And yes that’s increased some although again not as much as I suspect most people assume is the case. It’s a bit murkier but some have looked into just how many people owe their jobs/paychecks to the govt.:
That review of “The True Size of Government” conducted for The Volcker Alliance by researcher Paul Light determined that in 1984, there were more than 6.9 million people working as civilians for the federal government when including contractors and grant employees. Add in the military and postal workers and the figure jumped to 9.8 million.
Intervening years saw a drawdown in the military after the Cold War and then a buildup during the Global War on terror. The study concluded with data from 2015, when there was a total of 9.1 million workers, or 7.3 million without the military or postal service.
So when you deal with conservatives talking about a “bloated” government and workforce keep all this in mind. Also I want you to think about something else. Elected officials from the local level all the way up to the federal have increasingly looked to ‘cut their budgets’ by using contractors. For example some school districts choose to cut school bus service and contract it out. It looks good on paper. They can brag about ‘cutting government’ but in reality nothing changes – except it winds up costing more within as little as two to three years. The buses run on the same schedule. Students get back and forth to school and mostly with the same drivers from year-to-year. However, the contractor makes money by cutting maint. and/or buying new buses as much as they can get away with, AND cuts the pay of the drivers and mechanics. And of course once they’ve taken over the service increase the price when it’s contract renewal time. It’s not like the elected folks want to go proposing hiring a group of new town/county employees!
Imagine if you will the federal government owning say ammunition factories for all the bullets, bombs, artillery shells and mortar rounds we go through (and sell to other nations) every freaking year. If instead of paying top dollar AND a healthy profit to private companies the federal government just owned all that. Workers would still get the same pay and benefits (probably better), and with the government’s buying power the materials needed to make all those munitions would cost less too. But that would mean a sizeable addition to the federal workforce and conservatives would rather cut open a major vein than do THAT! Even if it saves money.
I bring this up because the true driving force behind DOGE is Trump’s (for now at least) buddy Musk. MUSK gets a huge amount of taxpayer dollars. Space X of course, without which we’d be relying on Russia to get our astronauts back and forth from space. DOD contracts (you think Musk paid for Starlink out of his own pocket) some of which are highly classified. “Black” even – as in they don’t even show up as a line item in the federal budget but Black programs are never, ever cheap.
That’s what’s NOT being talked about. Sure, you can (if Congress goes along) cut a whole four thousand jobs by making the conservative wet-dream of cutting the Dept. of Education. And in some other places too. Yet somehow when it comes to federal contractors and THEIR employees who’s paychecks ultimately come from taxpayers I don’t see DOGE having much appetite for big cuts. And let’s be real here – does ANYONE think a single contract Musk gets from the federal government will even get reviewed, much less cut?
Well, if you’ve extended me the courtesy of reading this I thank you. And hope it’s given you not just something to think about, but to use when dealing with conservative family, friends and co-workers. And your elected officials.
Not really sure why postal workers are being included in the “Federal workforce” since they haven’t gotten paid by the Federal government since the Postal Service was separated from the government back in 1971.
The Postal Service is a quasi-federal operation with a Board of Governors (who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate) and the Board then names a Postmaster General. But the employees are NOT paid by the Federal Government (the Feds have no direct say in the Postal budget or its process); their pay comes from money received from services offered–mainly from the sale of stamps but also assorted merchandise and special mailing services.
The last time the Feds got involved with the Postal Service was when Dubya managed to get Congress to force a ridiculous health insurance policy that would “prefund” health care for Postal workers through around 2070 (worth noting that no private company has such a policy nor does the Federal government use such a system for its own employees). Most people recognized this was just a way for the Feds to offset its own massive budget deficit (through accounting tricks) while making it look like the Postal Service was going broke (which would then allow the government to privatize the Service). In fact, while it’s true the Postal Service has had financial issues since the imposition of the prefunding, the “bleeding” looks far less severe when the prefund mandate is taken out of the picture (a good 90% of the Postal deficit for the last decade and a half is because of the mandate).
The DyManic duo may propose and it’s up to Congress to dispose. As stated above, very few are in DC; ergo, the rest are scattered around the states. Red state critters may be less than willing to act on the duo’s “suggestions”. Another tripwire for Project 25?