Steven Nelson writes for the Washington Examiner about the Trump administration’s efforts to rein in Washington bureaucrats.
President Trump signed three executive orders last month gutting rules that allow bad workers to prevent legitimate firings, and ending lucrative perks for the labor unions that helped put them in place.
Trump’s sweeping reforms target union power. He is curbing subsidized work hours and free office space unions. This is the biggest splash yet in his promised effort to obliterate bureaucratic obstacles that have made the government in Washington a warehouse for many lazy and incompetent workers.
And Trump is eager to take on more and bigger reforms, members of the administration say.
“We’re not kicking the can down the road. We have a president who actually wants this sort of change so that the federal government can be the best it can be,” said Jeff Pon, who since March has led the civil service as director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Trump’s recent orders alone save an estimated $100 million a year in reduced union subsidies. They are described by officials as among the most aggressive civil service changes possible without Congress passing new laws.
Yet, big though they are, they are only a fraction of a grander vision within the Trump administration to reform and refocus the federal workforce.
