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Trump’s Uncivil Service [1]

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Date: 2025-01-16

Imagine a federal government where the guiding principle for hiring isn’t merit, experience, or qualifications but rather personal loyalty to a single individual. Picture thousands of experienced public servants ousted and replaced by partisan loyalists with little regard for expertise or the rule of law. This is the dystopian reality that will occur if Trump implements Schedule F.

The civil service system, designed to ensure fairness and competence in federal employment, faces a serious threat. As political tensions deepen, the question of how we govern—not just who governs—becomes increasingly critical. My own experiences during a summer internship many years ago taught me firsthand the importance of both efficiency and integrity in public service and why disrupting that balance could have disastrous consequences.

A thousand years ago, I did a summer internship in the Consumer Complaints Department of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. My memory of the details is a bit foggy, but I recall there being about six employees, including the manager. The job involved fielding citizen concerns and questions, researching them, and providing written responses via mail—not unlike constituent services in a congressman’s office. There was a considerable backlog of requests.

Being a Type A personality, I dove in and began reducing the backlog. As I worked through the pile of inquiries, I noticed the staff giving me the cold shoulder. Another intern eventually took me aside and told me I was working too fast and that I should slow down. I didn’t. When my internship ended, I suspect the staff was relieved to see me go.

At the time, working slowly to protect or justify a job was called featherbedding. Now, it’s referred to as make-work or time theft, depending on the context. That internship was a personal experience with ‘fat” in state government, but it would be unfair to assume that most civil service employees abuse their positions. In fact, the majority of civil servants perform well. However, this reality conflicts with Republican views that the federal government is bloated and inefficient.

Of course, there is some inefficiency. Analyses by the Cato Institute and the Government Accountability Office suggest that inefficiencies in federal government operations amount to about 10-20%. However, by comparison, inefficiencies in large private corporations can reach 20-30%, according to management consulting firms like McKinsey and BCG.

So, while trimming inefficiency is reasonable, don’t assume privatization will automatically save money. The vaunted, private Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—seeks to cut personnel and may seek privatization of some functions. However, Trump’s strategy involves replacing non-partisan civil servants with partisan loyalists.

By invoking Schedule F, as he attempted during his first administration, Trump would reclassify tens of thousands of policy-related federal civil servants as “at-will” political employees, removing their traditional civil service protections. Trump’s stated goal is to dismantle the so-called “deep state.” In reality, it’s about creating the Trump State.

Schedule F would allow Trump to reclassify approximately 50,000 policy-related positions, fire the current employees, and replace them with individuals loyal to him. This would essentially dismantle the reforms established by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and take us back to pre-1883, before the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.

The passage of the Pendleton Act was done to combat corruption in federal employment, particularly the spoils system, where government jobs were awarded based on political connection and loyalty rather than merit. At the time, patronage and political favoritism were rampant, and bribes or kickbacks were common—though not always illegal.

Reverting to a spoils system through Schedule F would seriously weaken the federal government. The learning curve for new, potentially unqualified Trump-loyal appointees would be slow and steep, reducing governmental effectiveness and eroding public trust.

Of course, “pay-to-play” schemes will likely thrive in such an environment. Longtime Trump aide Boris Epshteyn was recently implicated in a scandal involving attempts to secure payments in exchange for appointments within the Trump administration. Epshteyn reportedly tried to extract payments from Scott Bessent and Eric Greitens to help them secure appointments but was unsuccessful. However, he did receive payments from William McGinley, whom Trump initially appointed as White House Counsel. When it was discovered that Epshteyn had been involved in this arrangement, McGinley’s appointment was quickly withdrawn. It seems clear that, in Trump’s orbit, if there’s a payoff to be made, it’s unlikely to happen without his involvement or benefit.

Then, to restore integrity, a future Democratic administration would face the unenviable task of firing Trump’s appointees, reversing Schedule F, and rebuilding a non-partisan, merit-based civil service. This would not only create further disruption but cumulatively affect up to 150,000 lives and the families of displaced workers—50,000 fired, 50,000 hired and later fired, and 50,000 hired.

The wholesale reclassification of civil servants into at-will political appointees will undermine the professionalism, stability, and institutional knowledge that make the federal government effective. It will erode public trust, diminish accountability, and transform the government into a political tool. The ensuing “brain drain” could take years to repair, leaving the American people to bear the costs of inefficiency, instability, and weakened governance. Schedule F is not just a policy change—it’s a step backward into chaos because of King Trump.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/16/2297213/-Trump-s-Uncivil-Service?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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