With the Trump Administration coming back to Washington DC, Donald Trump is expected to make sweeping cuts to the federal bureaucratic base, as well as cutting general government spending. During his campaign, one of his main positions was cutting back on “government bloat,” specifically calling out DC workers as part of a “swamp” that needed to be cleared out.
With his suggested layoffs (and closures of government agencies like the Department of Education), Northern Virginia is bound to take a hit. Many of the residents of Fairfax and Loudoun Country, as well as other areas in the DMV, work for the federal government in one shape or another, either directly or as contractors. Almost 10% of the DMV area works directly for the federal government, and with layoffs the local economy is bound to be impacted.
A particular issue for federal employees is Trump’s possible implementation of Schedule F, a proposed executive order that would repeal employment protections for civil servants. The order would create a new employment classification for these workers, exempting them from firing protections, allowing Trump greater power in dismissing employees he thinks are disloyal or aren’t executing his goals to the fullest extent.
For the over 140,000 federal employees and their families that work in Virginia, the job instability that could come from the second Trump administration is a serious concern. These concerns have even reached Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R), whose comments have recently angered federal employees and Democratic opponents.
“There are fabulous opportunities for folks to find a new employer in Virginia should the one they work for move away,” Youngkin said.
Even though recent job growth has slowed and opponents argue that removal of these jobs would contribute to a greater unemployment rate in white collar industries, both Trump and Youngkin have continued to support mass federal layoffs, without suitable solutions for the unemployment crisis it would create.
According to Trump’s campaign comments, “As many as 100,000 government positions could be moved out, and I mean immediately, of Washington to places filled with patriots,” which concerns many Virginians. Trump’s plan is concerning both economically and politically, as he indicates in this and other statements that the government under him must be loyal, on every level.
This would create a less diverse and less productive administrative state than we already have, filling federal offices with a skeleton crew of yes-men to run entire agencies and national programs that support many critical government functions (such as the Department of Education, Department of Health & Human Services, and the Department of Justice, all of which Trump has previously stated he intends to gut and replace with loyalists).
For our community, we have to be ready for unemployment and possible economic effects from the incoming Trump Administration. Many of his policies will impact the DMV area especially, with cuts to both jobs and federal programs taking an impact on the public and private sectors. For example, reductions in the Department of Education’s budget will lessen resources for Special Education programs (which are majority federally funded) and layoffs in regulatory agencies will make local unemployment rise due to the massive workforces they employ to create and regulate important economic aspects (such as food safety and financial fraud).
