Defending Public Service: Why America Needs Its Federal Workforce

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Ben Tafoya
September 5, 2025

The Trump administration’s sweeping assault on federal employees represents one of the most aggressive attempts to dismantle public service capacity in modern American history. From extended hiring freezes to eliminating collective bargaining rights, these policies ignore decades of evidence showing such approaches harm both government effectiveness and taxpayer interests. As I write this piece the President is attempting the unprecedented action of firing Dr. Lisa Cook from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the recently confirmed head of the Centers for Disease Control is in a similar position and these actions will result in another in a continuing string of legal actions to sort through the matters of presidential authority in dismissing term appointees and the process for removal of confirmed officials. They threaten the high level of expertise required for effective policymaking and administration.

President Trump’s current federal hiring freeze, initially instituted on January 20, 2025, has been extended twice and now runs through October 15, 2025—making it a nine-month moratorium. The administration has already reduced the federal workforce by 23,000 employees in its first nine weeks in office; however, research demonstrates that this approach is counterproductive.

The Government Accountability Office’s 1982 study of hiring freezes under Presidents Carter and Reagan found they had “little effect on Federal employment levels” and “disrupted agency operations, and in some cases, increased costs to the Government.” A 2025 analysis by the American Action Forum confirmed that “past hiring freezes have not significantly reduced federal employment levels, and there is no clear evidence as to whether freezes reduce operating costs.”

Previous GAO reports found that hiring freezes led agencies to use contractors despite prohibitions, resulting in taxpayers incurring costs up to 60 percent higher than those incurred by using federal employees for the same work. As GAO’s Gene Dodaro testified in 2017: “They haven’t proven to be effective in either reducing costs, and they cause some problems if they are in effect for a long period of time”. During the SEC’s hiring freeze from 2016 to 2019, 65.7 percent of employees reported that the freeze impacted their workload, and over 90 percent of supervisors said it negatively affected their division’s work.

The administration’s reinstatement of “Schedule F”—now called “Schedule Policy/Career”—strips civil service protections from tens of thousands of federal employees in “policy-influencing” positions. OPM estimates this affects 50,000 positions, or about 2 percent of federal workers, but legal experts suggest it could reach “hundreds of thousands” of employees, including “executive assistants, toxicologists and scientists.” This represents a fundamental assault on the merit system established by the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Legal scholars argue that Schedule F would “create chaos in the civil service, … which was formed to have a more professional workforce and end political bias and the corruption of the spoils system.”

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), established by executive order on Trump’s first day, has facilitated “mass layoffs and the dismantling of agencies and government-funded organizations.” The cited analysis found that DOGE’s cuts have directly cost over 50,000 people their jobs and could result in a loss of over $10 billion in U.S.-based economic activity. The Department of Education has already eliminated 1,950 positions, with the majority of these through layoffs rather than voluntary separation. DOGE initially shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development entirely, putting “thousands unemployed and putting U.S. foreign diplomacy and aid programs in limbo”. The report reveals a troubling pattern where DOGE destroys institutional knowledge without considering long-term consequences.

On March 28, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for over 1 million federal employees at approximately 20 agencies. This action lessens job protections for “nearly 1 out of every 15 workers nationwide covered by a union contract”. The White House fact sheet explicitly stated that the order was “aimed at stopping federal unions who have ‘declared war on President Trump’s agenda’.” Federal Judge Paul Friedman blocked portions of the order, finding that a key section allowing agencies to end collective bargaining was “unlawful.” The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act explicitly found that federal employee collective bargaining “contributes to the effective conduct of public business” and “safeguards the public interest”.

The research is unambiguous: these approaches don’t work. GAO’s 2024 annual report on government efficiency identified that “Congressional and agency action” on evidence-based recommendations “has yielded about $667 billion in cost savings and revenue increases”—but this came through targeted, analytical approaches, not blanket destruction. GAO found that “past government-wide hiring freezes hindered agency missions, caused inefficient staff utilization and clerical shortages, and resulted in lost revenue and uncollected debts”. Spending on higher education (and many other areas) supports the economy with a very high multiplier that can be lost with indiscriminate cuts.

Decades of research demonstrate that hiring freezes, mass layoffs, firings to lessen expertise and eliminating worker protections make government less effective, not more efficient. These policies aren’t reforms—they’re wrecking balls wielded against the institutional capacity that democracy requires. Congress and the courts must intervene before irreversible damage occurs.

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Author: Dr. Ben Tafoya, a retired public administrator, is an adjunct faculty member teaching economics at Northeastern University in Boston. Ben is the author of a chapter on social equity and public Administration in the volume from Birkdale, Public Affairs Practicum. He can be reached at [email protected] or on BlueSky @PolicyBen . All opinions and mistakes are his alone.

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