On March 17, personnel from the Trump Administration’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired 300 employees of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally created nonprofit dedicated to crafting programs aimed at preventing international conflict.
Two weeks later, on March 28, DOGE terminated 900 employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency responsible for leading U.S. humanitarian and economic assistance operations overseas, according to NPR.
The above examples are just a few in a litany of budget and personnel cuts imposed on the federal workforce, said NPR. In an effort to reduce the U.S. federal budget deficit and shrink the more than $36 trillion national debt, Elon Musk’s DOGE has committed to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget this year.
According to the New York Times, since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, thousands of federal employees have been fired without warning and little, if any, explanation. Some of the largest workforce reductions have taken place at USAID, where nearly 10,000 public servants amounting to almost 99% of that agency’s staff were terminated. In the Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 20,000 civil servants were let go. 5,700 roles were eliminated in the Department of Agriculture. The Veterans Affairs Administration plans to cut 83,000 personnel or 17 % of its agency workforce.
In addition, 300,000 federal employees and approximately 20% of the federal workforce reside in the Washington area, where cuts have been felt acutely, according to the Washington Post.
In addition to reducing the size of the federal workforce, the new administration has also aggressively cut federal spending. Nearly $1.5 billion in medical research funding for the Bethesda-based National Institutes of Health was partially frozen; all foreign aid assistance was temporarily halted; and tens of millions of dollars in funding from the Department of Education to hire and train teachers was cut. Similarly, on Feb. 17, the Department of Education announced that it would cut over $600 million in teacher training grants to public schools, in an effort to prevent what the Trump Administration deems “divisive ideologies” from being taught. These ideologies encompass subjects such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; social justice activism; and instruction on white privilege and white supremacy.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, operates a Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) to provide emergency mental health assistance for veterans, as the second leading cause of death for veterans is suicide. The line is staffed with 1,130 personnel, many of whom are also veterans, to assist other former service members with mental health issues. Earlier this year, DOGE informed VCL personnel that their positions were being eliminated, impacting the capacity of this agency to support veterans with critical mental health issues while in crisis.
Although a wave of lawsuits was instituted against the federal government by state attorneys general and private litigants seeking to contest some of these budget cuts, the Trump Administration appears unswayed in its campaign to aggressively reduce the size of the federal government’s workforce and budget footprint in numerous policy and programmatic areas impacting the daily lives of Americans.
