USA ... Election 2016
The Trump Transition

Washington Post ... Trump has a plan for government workers. They’re not going to like it.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

The Trump Transition ... Trump has a plan for government workers. They’re not going to like it.

President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to get rid of “waste, fraud and abuse.” (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)

President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are drawing up plans to take on the government bureaucracy they have long railed against, by eroding job protections and grinding down benefits that federal workers have received for a generation.

Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.

These changes were once unthinkable to federal employees, their unions and their supporters in Congress. But Trump’s election as an outsider promising to shake up a system he told voters is awash in “waste, fraud and abuse” has conservatives optimistic that they could do now what Republicans have been unable to do in the 133 years since the civil service was created.

[Trump and the federal workforce: Five key issues]

“You have the country moving to the right and being much more anti-Washington than it was,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a leading Trump adviser who serves on the president-elect’s transition team.

“We’re going to have to get the country to understand how big the problem is, the human costs of it and why it’s absolutely essential to reform,” said Gingrich, who urged Trump to shrink big government and overhaul the “job-for-life” guarantee of federal work.

Gingrich predicted that Stephen K. Bannon, a former Breitbart News chief who helped steer Trump’s campaign and is now one of his most influential advisers, would lead the effort. “It’s a big, big project,” he said.

[The faulty logic behind Trump’s plan to freeze federal hiring]

The project aligns with Bannon’s long-stated warnings about the corrupting influence of government and a capital city rampant with “crony capitalism.”

Breitbart headlines also provide a possible insight into his views, with federal employees described as overpaid, too numerous and a “privileged class.”

“Number of Government Employees Now Surpasses Manufacturing Jobs by 9,977,000,” the website proclaimed in November. There are 2.1 million federal civilian employees.

Meet Stephen Bannon, Trump's chief White House strategist Embed Share Play Video2:08

Here's what you need to know about the man who went from Breitbart News chairman to Donald Trump's campaign CEO before his appointment as chief White House strategist and senior counselor. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Top Republicans on Capitol Hill say their first priority will be making it easier to fire employees regarded as incompetent or who break the rules.

“It’s nearly impossible to fire somebody,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “When the overwhelming majority do a good job and the one bad apple is there viewing pornography, I want people to be held accountable.”

Chaffetz said he plans to push through wholesale changes to the generous retirement benefits that federal workers receive, by shifting to a market-driven, 401(k)-style plan for new employees.

He said the model would be his home state, which six years ago replaced the defined benefit pensions that have disappeared at most private companies with a defined contribution plan for new state and municipal workers.

“We have a Republican president who will help us drive this to the finish line,” Chaffetz said.

[Federal employees behind in pay by 34 percent, salary council says]

The promises go hand in hand with Trump’s promise to shrink the size and reach of government, from eliminating some agencies outright to lifting regulations and running the bureaucracy with fewer people.

Gingrich said the Trump administration probably would look for guidance from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who stripped public employee unions of most of their collective-bargaining rights and forced workers to pay more into their pensions and for health care in what became a bitter political fight.

The White House also can look for lessons from policies advocated by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

As Indiana governor, Pence battled public employee unions and approved pay increases for state workers who receive good performance reviews, a strategy tried at the Defense Department under President George W. Bush but which was poorly managed and eventually abolished. The pay-for-performance idea is nonetheless a rebuke to the government’s system of raises based on longevity.

“We’re going to be playing defense for at least a couple of years,” acknowledged William R. Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, the third-largest federal union.

“The most immediate worry is: How are we going to shrink government?” Dougan said. “Are we going to lay people off? Eliminate whole agencies or do it through attrition?”

How is President-elect Donald Trump likely to govern? Embed Share Play Video2:36 The Post’s Marc Fisher explains how some of President-elect Donald Trump’s traits could inform his leadership style when he takes office. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Trump has promised that in his first 100 days in office he will freeze hiring by not replacing employees who leave. The military and employees in public health and safety roles would be exempt, according to the president-elect’s Contract with the American Voter.

He has pledged to eliminate two regulations for every new one passed and shut down the Education Department and parts of the Environmental Protection Agency.

But he also wants a military with more ships, planes and troops. He has said he wants to triple the number of immigration enforcement agents and beef up the border patrol by thousands.

So a selective hiring freeze may be more realistic, Trump advisers say, where agencies Republicans dislike shrink and ones they like grow.

Trump can freeze hiring without Congress’ approval, with an executive order or less formal instructions to federal agencies.

Democrats and federal employee unions are preparing to fight the image of government workers as a privileged class and the bureaucracy as a bloated mess.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia district includes thousands of federal workers, said, “What study are they citing saying there are too many federal employees? Are you going to make a bunch of exceptions, in which case your plan looks like Swiss cheese?”

Others raise the specter that Republican proposals could allow political favoritism to creep into a system Congress created in 1883 to remove federal jobs from patronage ranks.

“Of course we want accountability,” said Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who will enter the Senate in January, “but we also want to protect against political favoritism. It’s important that we not allow the civil service to be politicized.”

Congressional Republicans have clamored for years for a smaller bureaucracy and a workforce that resembles the private sector. The calls quickened after a string of scandals, particularly at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where managers instructed employees to falsify patient wait times to cover up delays for medical appointments.

But much of this GOP-written legislation was opposed by the Obama administration and blocked by Senate Democrats.

Now, with a Trump White House eliminating a veto threat, conservatives see their vision within reach.

And Democrats acknowledge that senators who are nervously looking to reelection bids in 2018 and represent red states friendly to Trump may not fall on their swords to defend federal employees, whose presence is more diffuse outside the Washington area.

Many inside and outside government agree that change to the way federal workers are hired, promoted and disciplined is long overdue. Employees under investigation for breaking the rules can sit at home for years — collecting paychecks and benefits — while their cases drag on. Performance rankings are widely panned as a joke, because the vast majority of workers are rated as exceeding expectations or doing outstanding work.

Federal workers are seldom fired for poor performance — and it can take years for managers to make a successful case for dismissal for misconduct. About 0.5 percent of the civil service gets fired every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The civil service system fails at almost everything it was designed to do,” said Paul Light, a civil service expert at New York University. “It’s very slow at hiring, negligent in disciplining, permissive in promoting.”

“There’s a private awareness among Democrats and Republicans alike that we need to do something about this,” he said.

Trump says he wants to freeze hiring to clean up corruption in government — but not necessarily to save money, a connection roundly dismissed by critics.

“Look at what’s happening with every agency — waste, fraud and abuse,” he said on the campaign trail. “We will cut so much, your head will spin.”

Other presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, have frozen hiring to shrink government — but rarely succeeded for long periods. Reagan imposed a freeze the day he came into office in 1981 that was retroactive to Election Day, forcing managers to renege on job offers to hundreds of people. But the government soon ballooned with active-duty military and civilians as he began a massive defense buildup.

The civilian workforce is the smallest it has been since Reagan left office, after plummeting under Clinton and expanding under Bush and President Obama.

Yet Republicans say a leaner government goes hand in hand with a more accountable one in which managers and rank-and-file employees who’ve failed should not get to keep their jobs.

These changes have taken root, with a bipartisan law in 2014 to limit the appeal rights of senior executives at Veterans Affairs who face discipline for wrongdoing.

Since then, similar restrictions for employees across government have stalled in Congress, in part because the Obama administration made little use of its new authority — and this year stopped using it altogether in the face of a court challenge alleging that it violated employees’ right to due process.

Other changes could result in longer probation for new employees, with the goal of making it easier for managers to let poor performers go since they would have little job protections. This has started at the Defense Department, where the current standard has doubled to two years.

These changes are vigorously opposed by unions, which could be severely weakened under GOP plans to eventually wipe out what’s known as “official time,” union work done by employees who continue to receive full salary and benefits.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in an email that he will reach out to federal employee unions as his panel works to enact “long-overdue reforms to our civil service.”

Said Johnson: “If we start with areas of agreement, I am confident that we can make continuous improvements to the functionality of the federal workforce.”

Eric Yoder contributed to this report.

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By Eric Yoder November 9 Trump explains why he ‘didn’t like’ the phrase ‘drain the swamp’ but now does Embed Share Play Video0:39 At a rally in Kinston, N.C., Oct. 26, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the phrase “drain the swamp” has been “trending all over the world” since he started using it a few days ago. (The Washington Post) Donald Trump was critical of the federal workforce during his campaign for the presidency, with top advisers making a point of saying as president he should push to make it easier to fire government employees. Now that’s he won the White House, what does that mean for federal employees? What follows is a look at some of the top issues for the government workforce under a Trump administration. Trump said he wants to “drain the swamp” in Washington. What does that mean for federal employees here? A campaign statement said that Trump would institute “a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce the federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health).” That reflects language that has been in budget plans that have passed the Republican-controlled House several times in recent years but that never have been enacted, since President Obama almost certainly would have vetoed them. Those plans further set a goal of reducing the workforce by 10 percent, although the Trump position paper set no numeric goal. A separate campaign statement said the workforce has “many great and committed people” and “in the long term, a smaller federal workforce will mean a more honest and effective government, in which it is harder to hide corruption.” [Trump links federal hiring freeze to fighting corruption] Also, remember that only about 15 percent of the federal workforce is based in the Washington area, so reductions would fall not just here but nationwide. Meanwhile, another statement called for increasing the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. And a stronger emphasis on border security probably would translate into adding Border Patrol agents. By exempting some categories from cuts and allowing growth elsewhere, the cuts would fall even harder on other programs and agencies. One result could be greater reliance on contractors to get the work done. Other elements of Trump’s plan include a five-year ban on White House and congressional officials from becoming lobbyists after they leave government service and a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Those generally would not affect career federal workers. 0:30 / 0:30 Trump is famous for saying, “You’re fired!” Can he just go around doing that to federal workers? A distinction must be made here between political appointees and career federal employees — he certainly can, and will, say that to the former group, but things are more complex regarding the latter group. There are about 4,000 political appointees in the executive branch who serve at the pleasure of the president. Of those, about 1,100 require Senate confirmation and hold senior jobs at the various departments and smaller agencies. The other roughly 2,900 fill various roles, including as assistants to those higher officials and as the layer between them and the career workforce. [Newt Gingrich tells Trump: Make it easier to fire government workers] With few exceptions, they will be gone by the inauguration or soon afterward and the Trump administration will replace them with its own people. The career federal workforce is much larger — some 1.8 million permanent, full-time, nonseasonal employees, plus several hundred thousand temporary, part-time or seasonal workers, excluding the self-funding U.S. Postal Service. They receive various protections under civil-service law, including the rights to appeal personnel actions, including firing for merely political reasons. Most cuts to federal employment are the result of budget decisions affecting entire programs rather than individuals. Instead of conducting layoffs, a complex and costly process in the government, it’s more common for agencies to offer incentives to leave, such as loosening retirement eligibility rules and offering buyout payments that can be up to $25,000, pretax. Will there be an erosion of federal employees’ job rights? The level of accountability in the federal workforce is another issue Republicans in Congress have been pushing in recent years, citing scandals at agencies including the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs. They have had some success and could well have more with the White House and Congress in their control. In 2014, a bipartisan law was enacted to limit disciplinary appeal rights of senior executives at VA, but the Obama administration made little use of that authority and this year stopped using it in the face of a court challenge alleging the restrictions violated due-process rights. That effectively put the brakes on several separate attempts to extend those restrictions to executives government-wide and to limit the rights of all VA employees. Those bids were widely seen as setting a precedent, if successful, for similar restrictions government-wide. However, a law enacted in late September with Obama’s consent strengthened protections for VA employees who blow the whistle and required discipline up to and including firing for managers who retaliate against them. [Stronger protections for VA whistleblowers included in bill to keep government open] A campaign statement said Trump would “use the powers of the presidency to remove and discipline the federal employees and managers who have violated the public’s trust and failed to carry out the duties on behalf of our veterans”; “ask that Congress pass legislation that empowers the Secretary of the VA to discipline or terminate any employee who has jeopardized the health, safety or well-being of a veteran”; “create a commission to investigate all the fraud, coverups, and wrong-doing that has taken place in the VA, and present these findings to Congress to spur legislative reform”; and “protect and promote honest employees at the VA who highlight wrongdoing, and guarantee their jobs will be protected.” While that statement addressed only VA, such moves also could set a precedent for similar policies elsewhere. Other ideas whose chances of enactment probably would improve include extending from one year to two the probation period in which newly hired employees have few job rights, and limiting the practice of putting employees under investigation for disciplinary action on paid leave, which sometimes extends many months or even years. Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). What would that mean for federal employees’ health benefits? Maybe not much. The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program has been in existence for many decades and operates under a separate set of laws. That program already had included some features made national policy as part of the ACA, such as a ban on denying coverage because of a preexisting condition. One change in that law that did directly impact the FEHBP was to allow coverage of children to continue until they reach age 26; the previous cutoff was 22. That is one provision of the ACA that might be salvaged even in a general repeal. Another provision of direct impact required members of Congress and certain staff members to leave the FEHBP program. One result has been years of wrangling over how the administration interpreted that provision by allowing them to keep the employer contribution toward health care under certain circumstances. Whether they would simply be returned to the FEHBP is an open question. National News Alerts Major national and political news as it breaks. Sign up Will retirement and other benefits be on the chopping block? This requires speculation. While the campaign statements did not directly address those benefits, those same Republican budget plans whose chances for enactment have now improved have targeted benefits in various ways. Several of those plans have advocated increasing the required employee contribution toward retirement. Some have specified that the employer and employee shares should be made equal, which for most employees would require they pay in about 6 percent more of their salary; several smaller increases have been enacted in recent years affecting only employees hired after their effective dates.

Other recommendations have included eliminating a retirement supplement paid to many who retire relatively early and reducing the interest the government pays in the most popular investment fund in the Thrift Savings Plan, the 401(k)-style program for federal workers.

Another common theme has been to make the government contribution toward the FEHBP less generous. Currently, the government pays about 70 percent of the total premium as the employer. Several plans have recommended that it pay a fixed dollar amount instead and increase that amount by less than the overall cost growth in the program. That could spur many enrollees to shift to lower-cost plans, while those who don’t could end up paying a greater share toward their health insurance.