Fear is a strong motivator — especially when it’s given a political megaphone. And Democrat officials, public employee unions, and their minions in the media have no qualms about trying to terrify the public with ridiculous claims in an attempt to counter President Donald Trump‘s swamp-cleansing initiatives through the work of the Department of Government Efficiency.   

Just look at the recent hysteria from Capitol Hill. Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., likened the dismissal of federal employees to “a bank robber trying to fire the cops and turn off the alarm just before he strolls into the lobby.”

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, pontificated that “firing this many critical employees at once could make it impossible for our government to provide BASIC services.”

But the nuttiest scream of all came from yet another congresswoman, Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., who urged supporters of dismissed U.S. Agency for International Development workers to “Shut down the city! We are at war!”

She didn’t want to talk about the bizarre, absurd misuses to which those USAID workers had put the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers, like funding a “transgender comic book” in Peru. That is certainly something worth “going to war” about. Not!

As usual, mainstream media outlets are seeking to amplify the political Left’s hysteria. But a realistic look at the reduction in federal bureaucracy relative to the bloated size of the federal government shows just how ridiculous these claims are. They are engaging in the worst type of fearmongering hyperbole.  

The numbers can’t be exaggerated. 

The current proposals for reduction in federal agency personnel add up to just over 238,000 employees. But that number represents less than 8% of the more than 3 million current federal employees, according to the Pew Research Center. That 3 million figure, however, does not include the roughly 1.3 million active-duty military personnel. Pop that number in and out of the total of 4.3 million individuals receiving paychecks from the federal government — paid for by U.S. taxpayers — the Trump administration wants to reduce the size of the executive branch by only 5.5%.

That 4.3 million number of total employees makes the U.S. government the largest single employer in the entire country, larger than private companies like Walmart or Amazon. Moreover, that number is so large that it means the federal government bureaucracy is larger than the total population of half of the states, including places like Utah, Kansas, and Wyoming.

Add in the conglomerate of 109,000 government contractors, according to a 2024 study by the Government Accounting Office, and the dismissal percentage plummets even more. The estimates of the number of individuals employed by those contractors range from almost 4 million to over 5 million. Including those federal contractors drops the percentage of taxpayer-paid staff being laid off even more drastically.

If less than 8% of the civilian workforce has been shaved off, without taking into account contractors, that means over 92% of federal bureaucrats are still staffing the multitude of federal agencies. That’s 2.8 million federal workers still taking care of the business of the federal government. If the critics are correct that this minuscule reduction will cripple America, that says a lot about the inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and incompetence of vast swaths of the government.

Only by ignoring these statistics can critics continue to proclaim that the reductions in force proposed by the Trump administration will lead to a disaster. In fact, fewer government workers means fewer federal bureaucrats trying to overregulate, overtax, and overburden Americans in their personal lives, their businesses, and their professions.

Nor is this the end of the road for laid-off federal employees. Apparently, the critics believe that having to join the rest of us in finding a job in the private sector is a terrible infliction of harm.  

Yet over 30% of the federal workforce holds a bachelor’s degree, and over two-thirds of the now-former staff of USAID possess postgraduate degrees. These folks will be just fine in the private sector, although they might have to actually show up at their workplaces to work (horrors — what an inconvenience!).

It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath. And it is time for the American taxpayer to stop being burdened with paying the salaries of federal employees who are so numerous that they dwarf the populations of so many states.

While the pace at which Trump has implemented his plans may be surprising, that is only because Washington usually moves at a glacial pace, when it moves at all. But his actions to constrain and streamline the federal government have been needed for a long time — with no one until now willing to do anything to try to trim the bloated monstrosity that the federal government has become. Most importantly, his moves are improving — not wounding — the government.

Those listening to the shrill cries of the critics should step back and take in the full picture — a picture that shows that trying to get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse that infests the nation’s capital will benefit the American people and the republic.

Republished from The Daily Signal.