President Donald Trump will unveil his budget proposals later this week, which is likely to include the cutting of government bureaucrats at levels not seen since the end of the Second World War, according to budget analysts.
The budget, which will be released on Thursday, is expected to drastically decrease the size of government, cutting jobs in sectors such as housing, foreign aid, and environmental protection — and instead prioritizing areas such as the military and homeland security.
According to an analysis conducted by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, Trump’s plans could reduce employment in the capital by 1.8 per cent and average personal income by 3.5 per cent, as well as reducing house prices by 1.9 per cent.
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to “drain the swamp” of Washington D.C. by eliminating corruption and reforming the federal government.
Trump also promised to introduce a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce the federal workforce through a process of attrition, with the exemption of the military, public safety, and public health.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing government waste, telling reporters that the order will lead to a “thorough examination of every executive department and agency” to establish “where money is being wasted [and] how services can be improved.”
In January, House Republicans also voted to reinstate the Holman Rule, which scraps the minimum wage for government workers, meaning they can be paid as little as $1, making it easier to cut federal bureaucracy.
However, the majority of cuts will need to be passed through Congress, with Democrats are already forming opposition to Trump’s plans. Former vice-presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) recently said in an interview that “the notion of bulking up defense but slashing everything else, that’s not going to find any votes on the Democratic side.”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, Trump’s senior advisor Steve Bannon said a key aspect of the administration’s agenda would be the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
“The way the progressive left runs is that if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put it in some sort of regulation in an agency,” he said. “That’s all going to be deconstructed.”
The most important two minutes of Steve Bannon's CPAC speech -> pic.twitter.com/NcwbFgNoAL
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) February 23, 2017
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com
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