Janet Hook writes:

“Bureaucrat” is a really loaded pejorative. There’s no flattering use of the word. No child says, “I want to be a bureaucrat when I grow up.” Government workers are saddled with a stereotype of being faceless, lazy, unaccountable, corrupt paper pushers in a vast, wasteful machine of government. 

That caricature is one reason President Donald Trump has been able, so far, to get away with slashing the federal workforce with relatively little outcry from the public. It’s a brutal campaign that’s felt particularly acutely here in Washington, D.C., where so many of us know someone in the civil service. Outside the Beltway, the carnage may seem more remote (even though most federal workers live outside the D.C. area). A late January Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 61 percent of adults support Trump’s effort to downsize the federal government. 

Ironically, the agencies with the largest payrolls handle some of the most popular and essential government functions—and functions that Trump claims to favor. Set aside active-duty military and postal service personnel, the Cabinet agency with the largest payroll is the Veterans Department; most are healthcare workers, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. The next largest is the Homeland Security Department, which includes Customs and Border Protection. Among independent agencies, the largest employer is the Social Security Administration.

Government layoffs, it turns out, don’t even save that much money. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it cost about $271 billion to pay civilian employees in fiscal 2022—less than 5 percent of total government spending of $6.3 trillion. If it’s corruption Trump wants to cut, it’s not likely to happen by mindlessly dumping experienced civil servants and replacing them with his political cronies. 

The civil service is a fat target for Trump’s demagoguery because so many Americans are largely unaware of what people in government do for them and the country. In largely unnoticed ways, the lives of even the most affluent are affected daily, from the government-inspected bacon they eat for breakfast to the government-regulated air they breathe to the government-subsidized crops that fill their dinner plates. Some oblivious citizens say they hate the government but love Medicare. Just wait until they have benefit questions and get put on hold for hours because the public information staff has been sent packing. [Continue reading…]