An internal Trump administration memo reveals an extensive plan to cut government-wide staffing, including slashing the Treasury Department’s workforce by one-third and reducing the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s staff by half.
The memo, drafted a week ago, comes amid upcoming Reductions in Force that are expected to significantly decrease government payrolls. Trump has directed federal agency heads to devise their own plans for downsizing, with wide-scale layoffs scheduled to begin next month, according to the Washington Post.
Agencies where stiff cuts are being made include the Small Business Administration, at 43 percent, and HUD, at 50 percent, according to the memo, per the Post.
Cuts at the Education Department—where Secretary Linda McMahon has been instructed to reduce staffing by 50%—are expected to save $6 billion, while an 8 percent reduction at the Justice Department is projected to yield an additional $1.9 billion in savings.
The National Science Foundation, a longtime bipartisan favorite for funding, is slated for a 28 percent cut, and the Commerce Department is facing a 30 percent reduction.
At the Treasury Department, which includes the Internal Revenue Service, cuts are expected to reach 30 percent.
Trump cabinet officials have been lauding the cost-cutting measures implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency at cabinet meetings and other public events.
They include Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who told DailyMail.com that “the bottom line is that the entire cabinet is aligned, is supportive and understands the president’s vision that is being effectuated by Elon Musk and in partnership with all of the agencies, of course USDA, one of the largest agencies, over 100,000 employees … some of the Reductions in Force that we’re doing. We will never stop working for the American people.”
She did not address the emails sent to fired probationary employees that stated, “based on your performance, you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.” Notably, some of the dismissed probationary employees were involved in food inspections, a critical area as the administration works to manage a bird flu outbreak.
“It’s no secret the Trump Administration is dedicated to downsizing the federal bureaucracy and cutting waste, fraud, and abuse,” Harrison Fields told DailyMail.com when asked to confirm the contents of the memo.
“This document is a pre-deliberative draft and does not accurately reflect final reduction in force plans. When President Trump’s Cabinet Secretaries are ready to announce reduction in force plans, they will make those announcements to their respective workforces at the appropriate time,” he added.
At the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced a restructuring that will reduce the workforce by 20,000 employees, cutting 10,000 positions in the process. The agency plans to decrease its staff from 82,000 to 62,000, a move it claims will save $1.8 billion.
“The restructuring will address this and serve multiple goals without impacting critical services,” his agency noted in a previous statement.
According to an HHS fact sheet, the plan includes cutting 3,500 full-time positions at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 positions at the Centers for Disease Control, and 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health. Musk discussed the potential cost savings with Bret Baier on Fox News, though he did not specify how much had been saved “so far.”
“At a high level … we want to reduce the spending by eliminating waste—reduce the spending by 15%. Which seems really quite achievable. The government is not efficient and there is a lot of waste and fraud,” he told the Fox anchor.
He also said amid some high-profile mistakes such as firing and then hiring back nuclear safety workers. “When we do make mistakes we correct them quickly and we move on,” Musk noted.
