continues. host: welcome back.

we are joined by eric katz, senior correspondent for government executive. we are talking about the future of the federal workforce in the next trump administration. guest: thank you for having me. host: tell us about government executive and what you covered. guest: we cover the management and oversight of federal agencies. what federal agencies are actually doing and how it impacts their employees. we can cover congressional oversight of federal employees, and we are read all over washington. host: your article has the headline, trump vows to "dismantle" the federal. let's talk about how president-elect trump is talking about the federal bureaucracy and what his plans are. guest: he is coming in with a promise to shrink the size of

the federal government and the employees who work for it. he has talked similarly in 20 after being elected. he actually oversized light growth in the federal workforce, though most agencies shed employees. he is talking about slashing the agency budget and regulation, slashing what agencies carry out , and in so doing eliminating many federal jobs. host: has he talked about cutting programs? is there a plan as to how many federal workers he wants to cut? guest: it is not precise. he hasn't talked about too many programs. has talked about getting rid of the department of education. that would require an act of congress, so it's not clear that would happen. host: let's talk about that a little bit. vivek ramaswamy said that entire

agencies could get deleted. that was his word. if they wanted to close down an agency, and that money has already been allocated by congress, what would happen to that funding? talk us through that process. guest: the funding from congressional appropriation, that money, the president does not have that much discretion in revoking that. the president-elect has talked about the empowerment act, a decades old law that would give the president more flexibility in withholding funds and maybe he could use that, but the legal capacity there is murky. once congress provides the money and authorizes these things it is not really up to the president to say we are getting rid of this agency.

when he was the president last time he tried this on a smaller scale with small independent agencies. congress said no, we are keeping them, and they outlasted him. host: vivek ramaswamy on fox news talking about the plans for reduced government. [video clip] >> are you expecting to close down entire agencies like president trump talked about? the department of education, for example? >> we expect mass reductions and certain agencies to be deleted outright. we expect mass reductions in force in parts of the federal government that are bloated. we expect cuts of contractors who are overbilling the federal government. we expect all of the above. people will be surprised how quickly we are able to move with some of these changes given the legal backdrop that the supreme court has given us. host: he said people will be surprised how quickly we can

move. what is he talking about? guest: when he was run for president he also talked about this. his proposal was, certain legal protections that allow them guarantees before they can be fired. that would protect us from having a system where president could come in and install loyalists. he can get around that by having massive, widespread layoffs. that is what reduction in forces is referring to. he can quickly come in and say that all of theseies, you are too bloated and we are laying people off. what he is talking about is randomizing it. if your social security ins in an odd number, you are laid off it. if that is an effective way to manage government is questionable.

he's talking about laying off half of the doctors who care for veterans, half of the air traffic controllers, half of the civilians that support the armed services. that is something that i don't think would be practical or that congress would allow to go through, but they do have some ability to try to implement these layoffs. it won't be as quick as he talks about, because federal employees have the ability to appeal those and bog down the system a little bit, but he could do that. host: there are unions in the federal government. talk about how that works. guest: they are obviously going to fight this. in most cases they have collective bargaining agreements in place. they have contracts that in some ways dictate whether these -- the course by which these layoffs would take place, they

protect things like flexible work schedules. ramaswamy also talked about eliminating telework. most employees do not telework at all. most to do spend most of their time on site. host: ramaswamy says that most are teleworking and are not actually working. guest: according to the most recent data, that is not true. when you telework, it doesn't mean you're not working. it just means you are not working from an office. even that is, in many cases, needing to be negotiated through labor agreements. they can try to override that through labor authorities or the court, but it will be a challenge for them to unilaterally try to put that into place. host: i want to read this quote by the american federation of government employees and get your reaction. make mistake, our union will

nottand by and let any politica leader, regardless of their political affiliation, run roughshod over the constitution and our laws. during president trump's first term his administration ted gut many of our negotion ctracts come downsize and relate federal agencies at a great disruption and cost theaxpayers, and replace tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants with political appointees who would blindly do his bidding. guest: a couple of points. unions in his first term, tried to kick them out of the office space that they had and reduce the amount of time that employees could spend doing union activity. i expect those executive orders to come back into place quickly upon him taking office. in terms of the last point, that is a reference to what -- an executive order that trump

signed before he left office called schedule f. it would take away what we were talking about, the merit-based civil service. instead they could be fired because they were not loyal enough to the president. that was met with a lot of backlash. it never ended up going through, but trump promised to bring it back. we will see where that ends up. host: we will take your calls until the end of the program at 10:00 a.m. when the house gavels in. the numbers are, democrat (202) 748-8000. republican, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. federal employees, (202) 748-8003. in the clip that i showed you, ramaswamy mentioned contractors who were overbilling the government. contractors are a big part of

the federal budget. how would that work? has he said anything more about going after contracts? interestingly, elon musk is working with him in the same efficiency department. he is a big recipient of government contracts. guest: i think his contracts are estimated to be worth billions of dollars per year. there is some concern about a conflict of interest. in terms of going after the contracts, these things are constantly being renegotiated, so any administration has the ability to try to work out better deals for the government. trump talked a little about that in his first term. the federal government has enormous buying power, obviously, because of the scale at which they are operating. you can definitely see some of

these contracts be reworked, reshaped. i think every administration tries to do that. it depends what they are willing to go after, what services they are willing to shed if that is up for debate, but they will have opportunities to press federal contractors for what they are building the government. -- billing the government. host: can you talk about previous attempts and what came of them? guest: honestly, it is one of the oldest tricks in the washington playbook. the come in and say we have a blue-ribbon committee that's going to reduce the size of government and get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.almost every president comes in with some kind of task force to do that. president trump in his first term had a big reorganization plan that was aimed at making government more efficient.

that was internal to government where musk and ramaswamy will be outside of government. that came up with ideas that never went anywhere. some big initiatives happened under president clinton and president reagan that would similarly bring in outsiders to come up with proposals that would really make the government more efficient. they had some success. president clinton really did actually reduce the size of the federal workforce. but some of these proposals never really went anywhere. they would require congressional action. it wasn't just like here is some waste. they were real policy proposals and there was always an appetite for that. host: richard on x wanting to know about the numbers. what is the percentage of america's workforce employed by the federal government? guest: it depends on how you count.

there are about 2.1 million federal career civil servants. there are another 600,000 or so that worked for the postal service.and then there is active duty military. it is a fairly small percentage of the overall workforce in america, but it is not nothing. if you're talking about widespread layoffs of these people, and ramaswamy talked about 75%, that is a major economic impact. you're talking about laying off over one million people. host: let's go to sean in blacksburg, new york. democrat. caller: hello. i just want clarification. i'm not really democrat, i am republican. more independent. clarification. you mentioned the law that he passed before he left the last time, basically made it sound as though he would fire people who

were not loyal to him. as i understand it, it would give the ability to fire a federal employee that was not doing the job. guest: so, the executive order, he would apply the new firing capacity to any federal employee who worked in a policy position. it was loosely defined and there was concern that this could be applied on an extremely widespread basis. what i was referring to is what the administration actually talked about, which was, we have federal employees who are entrenched in these agencies and they are standing in the way of the president accomplishing his goals.when i talk about loyalty, what i mean is that they view much of the federal workforce as adversarial to what they are trying to accomplish, and anyone who stands in their way, this will make it easy to get rid of

them. host: project 2025 is said to privatize as much as possible. can you explain the risks and benefits of hiring employees versus contracting services? guest: first of all, there are many things that are inherently governmental. it's quite difficult to contract those out, unless congress were to rewrite those laws. federal contractors generally bill at a higher rate than federal employees. there is more flexibility there, which is why they are often turned to because they don't have to go through the same hiring processes and they don't have to be responsible for their lifelong pension or health care benefits as career employees, they are responsible for that. there is more flex ability for contractors, but it depends on what you're working on and what you're looking for. host: clarence in north

carolina, independent. caller: good morning. how are you doing? my problem with -- you have too much authority in the union, because you have a program like the union i was in, you can work two days and i can get a doctors excuse and come back the third day. you can't fire anybody. what trump did with the v.a., he made it to where you are not doing your job you can get fired. at the v.a., we had to wait for months to get an appointment. stand in the line, pause on the phone, they ignore you. we have people come in in wheelchairs. good, make them responsible. if you don't make them responsible, you ruin the government.

that is one of the main problems. it will never be solved until you get these unions in line. i was there and i saw it. that will make the federal government run so bad and they will never get it right until they get the unions do what they want them to do. host: what do you think? guest: there have been complaints for many years, decades, that it is too hard to fire federal employees because of what we talked about with the protections that they have. there needs to be justification for firing federal workers besides that they are not politically engaged in one side or the other. the -- it is not impossible to fire them, you just need to be able to support your case. it can take a little while, but thousands and thousands of federal employees get fired every year. it is certainly not impossible.

i will quickly mention that the caller worked at the v.a. and talked about what trump did. he passed a law that made it easier to fire employees at veterans affairs department. that didn't go well, because it was challenged in court, several different courts and panels found that it was unconstitutional the way that they wrote the law. we may try to see them bring that back, but the v.a. is not currently using the law because of the trouble that they had enforcing it. host: jay in burbank, california, democrat. caller: my question would be, didn't dictators like stalin, mussolini, chavez, orban, the first thing that they do when they come in is purge elected civil servant officials. they purge them, they replace them, they ensure loyalty like

what is going on here, they maintain control through intimidation and surveillance. how do you think that president trump's actions compared, and do you see any direct parallels with his treatment of the civil servant, especially loyalty tests and firing officials, using the government for personal and political gain? that is my question. guest: so, that is interesting, because certainly what these over a century now of civil service law is trying to prevent is that kind of system. what -- there are two different things going on here. the efficiency commission that vivek ramaswamy and elon musk are leading are talking about getting rid of employees altogether. not necessarily replacing them with loyalists, just shrinking the size of the federal

government. that would give more influence to the political appointees at those agencies, but would also mean they are doing less. you cannot just replace that with nothing. then there is the schedule f thing, which could lead to the president installing more loyal people to him. there are certainly -- they certainly talked about getting those who are not loyal to him out of the way, because they are resisting his efforts. so, it depends what scale they deploy this in. whether the court lets this go through or not. vivek ramaswamy has talked about how there is a friendly supreme court now. he plans to use that to his advantage to do things. once it gets up to the highest court, they will rubberstamp what he is trying to do. that is a possibility. host: jerry in somerset, kentucky, independent line. caller: if trump is getting rid of told million illegals, 3

million that lay around and don't work like republican say, 3 million are children, that leaves 6 million people leaving jobs open. are the federal government employees going to go do those jobs like picking peaches and cucumbers? i have picked cucumbers, and it ain't no fun. host: the washington post has this about where federal workers live in the u.s.. only 15% of the 2.1 million civilians full-time federal employees in the u.s. work in the washington metro area, including northern virginia, suburban maryland, and a bit of west virginia. the other 85% work around the country. you can see a map. the question is, one of the ideas is, too many agencies in d.c., we can move them out, and people will quit on their own.

what are you hearing? guest: that is something that they tried to do in the first term on a smaller scale. they moved the bureau of land management headquarters from washington to colorado, and they moved a couple of agencies like the usda to kansas city. if their goal at the time, mick mulvaney talked about this, if their goal was to get people to quit, it worked. large-scale, on a large-scale those employees did not relocate. that led to a lot of problems as these are experienced people who have a lot of institutional knowledge as to how things work come of budget functions, and they walked and the agencies didn't have that anymore. it's a good point that people often get that 85% of the federal workforce is not in the d.c. area. most employees are not already here but most headquarters are.

that is what these folks are talking about when they want to relocate. they want to put headquarters closer to where they are carrying out their function. host: patrick in fairfax, virginia. caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. my question is, mr. elon musk and ramaswamy, will they be government employees? if so, what type? if so, are they subject to the same conflict of interest rules that all government employees are subject to, especially those employees involved in contracting? they can be suit, i believe, if they violate regulations regarding contracting. guest: announcing this initiative, the president said that this would operate outside of government. allow them to operate more

nimbly, but they would work closely with the white house and the budget office to implement the things that they want to affect. typically, when these special advisor positions, they do have certain ethical constraints and disclosures that they have to make. we will have to see the structure that they set up to see if that would apply, but i imagine musk and ramaswamy would resist that. host: the hill has this article that says federal workers brace for trump overhaul of civil service. what are you hearing from federal workers themselves? are they concerned about this? are they starting to look for other jobs? what is the mood? guest: we are starting to have these conversations. there are two tracks in my conversations. employees who are freaked out

and really worried about what is going to happen. some of them are less so. they're just quitting but if they are retirement eligible they may retire earlier than they anticipated. some maybe are looking for other jobs. i have heard that. other say i have been around for trump administration in the past. it's difficult and we have smaller budgets and more pressure on us from political appointees, we have had to reverse course on some of the things we were doing, but we ultimately survived and got through it and it is important for me to be here, carry out my function, and deliver on the mission of the agency. that is probably the more common thing that you hear. there are definitely nerves and anxiety. specifically in terms of the schedule f proposal, i think

that people are really nervous about what that will entail, but most are willing to wait it out and see how it plays out. host: what will you be watching for throughout the transition and in the beginning of the trump administration? guest: a couple of things. one, the president-elect has not formally cooperated with the biden administration on the transition because they have to sign agreements that statutorily they must sign to deploy their teams into agencies. every transition you send a bunch of people into each agency to get briefed on what they are working on and try to set expectations for what you want to work on when you get there. that is not happening yet. from what we understand it is expected to happen, but we don't know when. definitely keeping an eye on that. if they start to signal what the day one priorities are going to be, we will obviously want to look at that.

right after he took office in 2017 trump issued a government-wide hiring freeze. he hasn't said if you will do that again, but that had a years-long impact because they were trying to backfill all of those roles for all that time. we will keep an eye on that. these executive orders, talking about federal employee union relations or making it easier to fire proposal, these are all things that would have a pretty significant impact and we will definitely be watching that. host: eric katz is the senior correspondent for government executive. you can find his work at gov execut.com.