MASSIVE DOWNSIZE: Why Trump’s Latest DOGE Order Will Help Restore Sanity to Our Government

While many Americans may be familiar with the three branches of government in the Constitution, fewer are aware of the fourth branch of government—a vast bureaucracy of “alphabet soup” agencies (think the IRS, FDA, DOJ, and many, many more) that technically answer to the president but enjoy civil service protections that make them hard to fire.

While unions and other protections for the civil service sound good in theory, they can be pernicious in practice. Many bureaucrats think of themselves as smarter than or superior to the American people and their elected representatives, a mentality that helps explain the “deep state” efforts against Donald Trump in his first administration.

In fact, a recent poll found that 64% of Washington, D.C.-based federal bureaucrats who voted for Kamala Harris say they will not follow a lawful Trump order if they consider it bad policy.

This bureaucracy often aligns with the woke priorities of activist donors like George Soros and his son, Alex. The Department of Government Efficiency under Trump has highlighted how one agency, in particular, the U.S. Agency for International Development, has directed Americans’ tax dollars to promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and transgender orthodoxy internationally.

My book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” exposes the woke activist groups that staffed the federal bureaucracy under former President Joe Biden—groups that are now gearing up to oppose Trump’s administration.

Congress created many of these agencies by statute, but the agencies are supposed to answer to the president, and if the executive power means anything, it means the president should have wide latitude to downsize, restructure, and combine the agencies to make them more effective and efficient for the American people.

In this context, Trump’s executive order Tuesday directing a massive downsizing of the federal workforce comes as very good news. The order will help bring the bureaucracy to heel, making it more accountable to the people’s elected president.

Trump signed the order in the Oval Office and held a news conference with the head of DOGE, Elon Musk, afterward.

Trump’s DOGE Downsizing

The order aims to carry out a “critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy” to “restore accountability to the American public.”

“By eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity, my administration will empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of government itself,” the order states. The order fleshes out how DOGE—a temporary federal initiative to root out waste, fraud, and abuse that will wrap up its activity by July 4, 2026—will help streamline the government.

The order instructs the director of the Office of Management and Budget to submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce, requiring that each agency “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart.” The order will not block the hiring freeze at the Internal Revenue Service and it will not apply to the military, to law enforcement, and to border enforcement agencies.

According to the order, each federal agency will receive a DOGE team lead, who will help each agency draft a “data-driven plan” to ensure that new career hires “are in highest-need areas.” The DOGE team lead will have the authority to block agencies from filling any vacancies, unless the agency head disagrees.

Also, according to the order: “All offices that perform functions not mandated by statute or other law shall be prioritized” for reductions in force, “including all agency diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives,” among others. Trump has rightly directed the federal government to minimize DEI efforts, as they encourage discrimination on the basis of skin color, urging people to judge others based on appearance rather than merit.

The order also instructs the director of the Office of Personnel Management to tighten the requirements for federal employees, barring applicants who failed to comply with generally applicable legal obligations; those who lack appropriate citizenship status; those who refuse to follow nondisclosure agreements; and those involved in the theft or misuse of government resources or equipment.

These requirements back up Trump’s previous claims that he aims to instill a performance culture focused on “excellence at every level” and a “more streamlined and flexible workforce.”

The order also requires agency heads to submit to the Office of Management and Budget a report that identifies the laws that establish the agency or subcomponents of the agency. This is likely a tool to help the administration determine which agencies can be eliminated or consolidated without any act of Congress.

The order does not apply to the military, law enforcement, or border enforcement.

The Ongoing Battle

Trump has aggressively sought to restrain the bureaucracy and oppose leftist ideology during his first month in office. He signed executive orders pausing foreign aid and government grants; reinstating the Schedule F policy that would enable the executive branch to more easily fire bureaucrats; declaring that there are two genders for purposes of U.S. law; and removing DEI from the federal government.

Under Trump’s direction, DOGE has closed and audited a few agencies, most notably the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Many of the same Woketopus leftist groups that infiltrated and advised the federal government under Biden are now filing lawsuits to block Trump’s policies, and judges have issued injunctions ordering the administration to cease its sweeping changes, even though Trump’s funding pauses and DOGE are both temporary.

Trump rightly condemned this trend in the news conference.

“I can’t imagine a judge saying, ‘Well, it may be corrupt, but you don’t have the right. You got elected to look over the country, and to—as we say, Make America Great Again—but you don’t have the right to look and see whether or not things are right that they’re paying or that things are honest that they’re paying,’” Trump said.

He added that law professors dispute the idea of judges taking his right to lead the country away from him.

“If a judge is going to say, ‘You’re not allowed to look for [fraud, waste, and abuse],’ that’s pretty sad for our country,” Trump added.

Trump is right—the American people elected him to root fraud, waste, and abuse out of the federal government. They voted for change after four years of woke elites calling the shots in Washington. This battle represents the bureaucracy fighting back against democracy.

How perverse that judges would favor unelected bureaucrats over the people’s will.

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