ALG Editor’s Note: In
the following featured column from the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard, President-elect Donald Trump could be eying 10 percent
spending cuts and 20 percent cuts to staff at certain departments:
Trump eyes
10 percent spending cuts, 20 percent slash of federal workers, by Paul Bedard
Making good on a promise to slash
government, President-elect Trump has asked his incoming team to pursue
spending and staffing cuts.
Insiders said that the spending
reductions in some departments could go as high as 10 percent and staff cuts to
20 percent, numbers that would rock Washington if he follows through.
At least two so-called "landing
teams" in Cabinet agencies have relayed the call for cuts as part of their
marching orders to shrink the flab in government.
The cuts would target discretionary
spending, not mandated programs such as Medicare or Social Security, the
sources said.
The spending reductions are expected
to be used to help pay for Trump's plan to boost the Pentagon's budget, tax
cuts and some pet projects, potentially including the anti-immigration wall on
the nation's southern border.
The teams also are looking at
staffing cuts over four years through attrition, a hiring freeze and
reorganization.
The plan is winning cheers in
conservative, anti-tax and anti-spending corners in Washington that have long
sought massive cuts in the bureaucracy.
Presidents rarely cut spending,
choosing freezes instead. In the meantime, federal spending has reached
historic levels. Trump has picked a budget hawk, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, to head
the Office of Management and Budget, a clear sign that spending cuts are a top
priority.
Still, Trump is likely to face a
wall of opposition from Democrats and federal unions who consider much of the
federal workforce on their side.
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