REPORTER
Constitution, the laws in the United States. No president in my memory has used the White House as an extension of his private office and engaged in direct transactions that benefit him.”
Bellowing about corruption and waste, the president, who was found guilty of thirtyfour counts of falsifying business records in New York state( as of July, he is still appealing the verdict) and threw himself an estimated $ 45 million birthday military parade in June, took a chain saw to the federal workforce, which as of September 2024 directly employed 2.4 million people, excluding the active-duty military and postal service.( In Rhode Island, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Naval Undersea Warfare Center are the biggest federal employers.) In the first round, 130,000 employees took a buyout, retired or were fired. Another 150,000 are expected to lose their jobs in future reductions in force.
The effort has sparked comparisons to 1993, when President Bill Clinton launched a program to streamline the federal gov-
ernment. By the time he left office, this initiative had thinned the federal ranks to fewer than 1.9 million, according to Drew DeSilver of the Pew Research Center.
“ But they did nips and tucks. The idea was to do it in such a way that it wouldn’ t impact service delivery so most people wouldn’ t notice,” DeSilver says.“ The fact that you have to remind people that it happened tells you how successful they were. But they were doing over six or seven years
“ What happens in Washington, D. C., has a direct impact on what happens in Rhode Island.”
— Rhode Island House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi what [ former head of the Department of Government Efficiency ] Elon Musk tried to do in six or seven days.”
The average person has the vague notion that the government comes on April 15 to take their money and give it to poor people, old people and the military. But the federal government is woven into everyday life in myriad ways that are unrecognized, and our tax dollars are invested in thousands of projects and programs that improve the quality of life here and abroad and support the economy.
“ What happens in Washington, D. C., has a direct impact on what happens in Rhode Island— direct,” says Rhode Island House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi. He ticks off a list of federally supported jobs and projects: a third of the positions at the state Department of Health and the Coastal Resources Management Council, bridge and school construction, as well as nursing home, physician and hospital payments.
“ We are now being told that they are not going to release our bridge money unless we sign something that [ says ] Rhode Island’ s not a sanctuary state, and we are not going to institute any Diversity, Equity
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