Should the Federal Workforce Be Cut by 10% Through Attrition? (H.R. 6938)

What is H.R. 6938?

(Updated April 5, 2021)

This bill — the Rightsizing the Federal Workforce Through Attrition Act — would require the president and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to reduce the total number of federal employees as of September 30, 2018 by 10% for fiscal year 2019 and future years. If an agency has too many employees, it wouldn’t be able to appoint new employees until the number of employees is reduced to allowable levels. Additionally, agencies wouldn’t be able to appoint more than one employee for every three employees retiring or leaving government service after this bill’s enactment.

The president would be able to waive the cap on federal employees because of a war, national security concern, or other extraordinary emergency threatening life, health, public safety, or the environment.

Argument in favor

The federal workforce is bloated, inefficient, and imposes too large a cost on taxpayers. It should be reduced by 10% from its current size except in times of national emergency.

Argument opposed

A 10% reduction in the federal workforce would undermine public services and national security. The president shouldn’t be able to unilaterally declare an emergency to waive this reduction.

Impact

Taxpayers; federal employees; and the president.

Cost of H.R. 6938

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Mike Bishop (R-MI) introduced this bill to reduce the size of the federal workforce by 10% unless there’s a national emergency. In fiscal year 2017, the OPM reported that the federal government had roughly 1.87 million civilian employees (an increase of about 24,000 employees from FY2008). The only federal non-defense agencies with more than 100,000 employees are the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (342k), the Dept. of Homeland Security (173k), and the Dept. of Justice (111k).

The White House directed federal agencies (except for the Pentagon) to reduce their discretionary budgets by 5% (or more) for the upcoming fiscal year 2020 budget cycle.

Media:

• Office of Personnel Management (Context)
  
• Washington Post (Context)