I worry sometimes that many Americans do not understand the Constitution and how the U.S. Government works. Here is a brief refresher, to include the role and impact of Federal Employees. Please read to the end – that’s the important part.
The United States Government
The US government’s system of checks and balances separates powers among the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. This separation of powers prevents any one branch from becoming too powerful. Here is how the branches work.
- Legislative: Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) makes laws.
- Judicial: The Supreme Court and other federal courts evaluate laws.
- Executive: The president, vice president, Cabinet, and most federal agencies carry out laws.
While there are additional agencies and subcomponents, these are the fifteen Executive Branch Cabinets.
- Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense
- Department of Education
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Department of the Interior (DOI)
- Department of Justice (DOJ)
- Department of Labor
- Department of State
- Department of Transportation (DOT)
- Department of the Treasury
- Department of Veteran Affairs
Federal Employees and Programs
Within these cabinets, President Trump’s funding cuts could impact roughly 2,600 programs. I culled the following from that list, trying to include an example or two from each cabinet. As you read through these, virtually everyone in America will be negatively impacted by at least one of these programs being eliminated, should that occur. And who thanklessly manages every aspect of every one of these programs under the direction of politicians, political appointees, and the law? Federal Employees.
- Head Start Preschool
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollment
- Women, Infant, Children (WIC) Enrollment
- Children served by the National School Lunch Program
- Title 1 Education Programs
- Household Choice Voucher Program
- Households served by Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
- Community Food Cupboards
- Community Health Care Centers
- Individual Assistance for Disasters
- Public Assistance for Disasters
- Manufacturing jobs in clean energy industries
- National Deaf Services Line
- National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative
- Powering Affordable Clean Energy
- Jobs for Veterans State Grants
- Consolidated Tribal Government
- Very Low to Moderate Income Housing Loans and Loan Guarantees
- Wildlife Services
- Civil Air Patrol Program
- National Guard ChalleNGe Program
- National Defense Education Program
- Additional tax deduction for the elderly
- Arts in education
- Charter Schools
- Special Education: Special Olympics Education Programs
- Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant to the States
- Burial Expenses Allowance for Veterans
- SBA Disaster Assistance Loans
- Social Security Survivors Insurance
- STEM Education (formerly Education and Human Resources
- Mortgage Insurance Homes
- Fair Housing Assistance Program
Federal Employee Heroes
The Federal Employees, also referred to as Civil Servants, who serve our nation and every single one of our citizens (100%) are now, more than ever, my heroes. And they should be your heroes as well. And I will tell you why.
A hero is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. They surpass each of these criteria easily. As of Feb 13, “overall, a slim majority of Americans (55%) express a great deal or fair amount of confidence in federal career employees.”
Not surprisingly, when you parse that out by political parties, The confidence of Republicans is much lower than that of Democrats. Pause on that for a second. The work that is being done is the work that is being done. So, the difference in opinion has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with performance. A few related facts here. Federal employees are themselves, Republicans, Democrats, and Trump Supporters. Another fact. Slightly more than two million people work for the Federal Government. Another Fact. the vast majority of the US population, over 300 million people, have never worked in the federal government.
If you have never worked in the federal government, you do not truly know these Civil Servants the way that I have, working beside them for more than 40 years in the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, while coordinating and working beside several other departments.
So despite political judgments and uninformed societal judgments, Let me tell you about these people that I know. Let’s get back to the definition of a hero – courage, achievement, nobility.
I have seen civil servants see people who have died, who serve fellow Americans during their most difficult days, and who sacrifice time with their own families to voluntarily help strangers. I was there in Puerto Rico, soon after the impact of Hurricane Maria as I worked beside other federal government employees, many of whom were also Puerto Ricans. They were survivors of the hurricane, their homes were without power, they had little access to food and water. And yet, they put both their comfort and emotions aside to serve fellow citizens. I could write chapters of examples of courage like this.
As far as achievements, look back at the list of programs I provided. These civil servants have helped babies, veterans, those in poverty, the elderly, Americans wanting to learn. Federal Government employees put a man on the moon, defeated terrorists, protected the homeland, made highways and schools safer, helped whole communities recover. These are even more than achievements. These are a testimony to their greatness. And I could write volumes of examples about this.
And yes, the nobility and the character of these great Americans are beyond question. They could make more money. They are overworked and underappreciated. They keep vital life-saving programs functioning, even every four years when the politics change, these federal workers ensure continuity of services to their fellow Americans. Even this week, as federal employees are being terminated in rash and arbitrary ways (more on that in the next section), the most common thing I hear from them, is not self-pity or how they will feed their family, but rather their concern for the programs and fellow Americans they supported.
Federal employees are courageous noble, over-achievers.
They are my heroes, and they should be yours too.
The Ends Do Not Justify The Means
That phrase, “the ends justify the means,” is often attributed to Niccolò Machiavelli, who is known for his political philosophy that sometimes requires seemingly unethical actions to achieve a greater good. And there are times where that may be true.
But this is not one of them.
In fact, the means we are seeing right now will not even achieve the desired end. Let’s look at this logically. Right now federal employees who are in their probationary first year are receiving impersonal layoff notices in their email boxes. Not even the common courtesy of being informed by a supervisor. No American deserves to be treated that way. But that is just the beginning of what makes it all arbitrary. Nobody in their right mind would take over a football team, a restaurant, a bookstore, or school board and blindly decide to fire the newest people without evaluating skills, performance, or impact to programs. So why would the Administration do something so illogical? For the same reason a dogs lick themselves, because they can. It is easier and faster and not subject to the checks and balances our founding fathers provided us. It is a cheap end run around.
We should apply the same scrutiny and analysis to grants, programs, and departments being eliminated. Just yesterday we learned that “The National Nuclear Safety Administration was struggling Friday to rehire some of the nation’s top nuclear specialists after they were fired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in an apparent massive mistake, according to reports that triggered security fears.” There is no defending how reckless that is. There is also little thought to second and third order effects. Trump Supporters applauded the elimination of USAID funding, without even caring to know that would include a loss of $2 billion to American farmers. I could list dozens and dozens of more examples like these. And more come every day. Speed over analysis will hurt Americans and America.
Conclusion
There is nothing wrong with wanting to downsize the Federal Government. I agree that there are a great many ways we can streamline services and reduced spending. Most Federal Government employees believe the same. But we can achieve all of that while staying true to the constitution, obeying the law, and evaluating the consequences of every action.
And if nothing else, we can be respectful of the heroes in all of this – the federal government employees. Instead of bashing and insulting people you do not know and criticizing their performance you have never seen, while they are facing unfair terminations that impact themselves and their families, at least thank them for their service.
They served you.
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Stoneking Strategic Communications (SSC) 