What is the cause of the disappearance of DOGE?
As DOGE disbands, questions remain about how close it came to fulfilling President Donald Trump’s mandate.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on June 3 signed an executive order converting about 8,000 federal employees in “senior policy-influencing positions” to at-will employees and making it easier for his administration to fire them.
Approximately 97% of the reclassified positions are among the highest career positions, such as directors, chiefs of staff, senior advisers, and policy analysts, who are involved in drafting regulations and guidance and making federal grant decisions.
During an Oval Office event to sign the executive order, President Trump invited James Shirk of the Domestic Policy Council, the mastermind behind the change, to share his thoughts.
Shirk said the process of removing federal employees is often time-consuming.
“When you have employees who are trying to undermine the hopes of the American people, either by pushing their own agenda or simply not being able to do their job, agencies spend typical years removing them, and that’s a special problem,” Shirk said.
“This basically means treating these employees the same as private sector workers. They can be hired based on merit…but if they mess up, you can fire them really quickly rather than taking a year,” he added.
A fact sheet published by the White House more clearly explains the thinking behind this change.
The newspaper said that because firing employees is burdensome, “agencies rarely fire career employees” for “subverting the president’s priorities.”
The number of employees affected by this transition is lower than previously estimated by the Office of Personnel Management. In February, OPM estimated that approximately 2% of the federal workforce, or approximately 50,000 employees, would be reclassified to a schedule policy/career.
Since the inauguration of the second Trump administration, the federal government has cut more than 300,000 civil service jobs. The job cuts were driven by redundancies, buyouts and deferred resignation offers in conjunction with the Department for Government Efficiency.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is USA TODAY’s White House correspondent. You can follow her at X @SwapnaVenugopal..
