Matthias Kulka/Getty

There’s No ‘Easy Button’ for Cutting Government

As tempting as they are, across-the-board budget cuts and hiring freezes are the worst way to reduce the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy.

It’s budget season again, this time with the added drama of debt ceiling relief, and once again we are faced with congressional proposals to cut the size and cost of the federal government—even the Defense Department isn’t immune. This, we are told, can be accomplished just by pressing the “easy button”—across-the-board budget cuts, coupled with workforce reductions by attrition and hiring freezes. After all, that’s the least painful way of getting at all the waste and bloat that’s allegedly embedded in the federal bureaucracy.

But the truth is nothing could be worse than this approach.

Speaking as a former director of civilian personnel for DOD, and later one of the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. intelligence community’s most senior civil servants, I would implore those responsible parties on Capitol Hill and in the White House to avoid this seductive but insidious temptation. Experience and history have shown that hitting the easy button is a supremely bad idea, one that may seem painless in the short term but has major adverse impacts over the long term, starting with national security.

Across-the-board, nonprogrammatic cuts—what we used to derisively call “salami slicing” in the Pentagon—may seem painless compared to the hard decisions involved in cutting specific programs, and then following them up with targeted reductions-in-force. That’s especially true when the voluntary attrition of employees in an institution as large as the federal government can approach 100,000 people a year. But all this does is hollow out the workforce and postpone the inevitable reckoning of severe skills imbalances.

Treating civil servants as a cost to cut—instead of a resource to be husbanded—is a huge mistake.

Deja Vù All Over Again

Here’s a history lesson. When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the country and Congress expected a “peace dividend” to take fiscal advantage of the situation. It was time to reap the benefits of over 40 years of budget-straining vigilance. And given that most of DOD’s budget was—and still is—devoted to military and civilian personnel costs and the infrastructure associated with them (such as installations), these became targets for cuts.

The military side was relatively easy, at least on the surface. All DOD had to do was stop its recruiting pipeline and let existing military enlistments and commissions, all term-limited, expire. As they did, the people who held them simply would leave the service. Contract cuts also were thought to be relatively easy. DOD could just cancel contracts “for the convenience of the government” and reduce its costs accordingly. (This, too, is a myth, but that’s another story.)

But the department’s large civil service workforce was a different matter. DOD civilians—there were over 1 million at the end of the Cold War—represented the department’s institutional memory and a source of continuity that contrasted with (and balanced out) the military’s constant change. In addition, as others have pointed out, DOD civilians provided the skilled labor for naval shipyards and aircraft and ammunition depots, as well as the knowledge workers to manage its huge, complex installations and infrastructure. They also did the inherently governmental things (like procurement) that only government employees can do. They were also hard to fire—maybe too hard, although that’s another story as well.

Still, they were a large and tempting target for Congress, especially with a voluntary attrition rate of around 5%. That translated to over 50,000 resignations per year in DOD alone, all without breaking a sweat. But from a capability standpoint, the attrition was random, unplanned and unmanaged. And not only were many of those who left not replaced, but the organizations they left behind became hollow—viable on paper, but in reality unable to perform their missions.

The same would later become true for the rest of the federal government, as Congress hit the easy button there, too. The problem is that over time, only the best, most highly skilled, most marketable employees voluntarily leave, whether from DOD or the federal government writ large. This is something every government leader, policymaker, human resources manager and union official knows—or should know.

Lessons Learned—And Apparently Forgotten

Most of those who championed the easy button approach in Congress and the Office of Management and Budget were long gone by the time its adverse impacts began to manifest themselves. This approach, replete with its own resplendent central bureaucracy around hiring freezes and exceptions, turned out to be the worst way to go about reducing the size of a workforce.

The best way is also the most difficult: make cuts based on hard decisions about specific programs. Follow them with RIFs that are tied and targeted to those programmatic reductions, as well as cuts in the support “tail” that comes with them: long-term research and development, procurement, information technology systems, program implementation, maintenance, infrastructure and more.

But at the risk of stating the obvious, these are exceedingly hard, and in the 1990s, Congress and the White House wanted a painless way to slash big government. So across-the-board cuts and attrition-focused workforce reductions became the order of the day. And despite the warnings of us career executives to the contrary, they went the painless route, and we saluted smartly.

I wish we hadn’t. The resulting skills imbalances were not just a temporary phenomenon. They persisted over the long term—just look at how unprepared we were from a human capital standpoint on Sept. 12, 2001—and we’re still paying the price today.

Program-based cuts are difficult and painful. But that’s no excuse for across-the-board salami slicing. Instead, we should take a hard, bipartisan, bicameral look at the federal budget, cut it if and where we must, but with specificity that is translated into corresponding employment levels. That’s neither easy nor painless, but it’s the right thing to do.

Ron Sanders is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a retired career member of the Senior Executive Service. He also served as director of civilian personnel at the Defense Department, chief human resources officer for the IRS, associate director of OPM, chief human capital officer for the U.S. intelligence community, and chairman of the Federal Salary Council. 

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.