The federal government's chief human resources agency has issued a new rule making it more difficult to fire thousands of federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management regulations will bar career civil servants from being reclassified as political appointees or as other at-will workers, who are more easily dismissed from their jobs. The action comes amid promises from former President Donald Trump to make changes to the size of government – or as he has stated before: “dismantle the deep state.”
President Joe Biden called the rule a “step toward combating corruption and partisan interference to ensure civil servants are able to focus on the most important task at hand: delivering for the American people.” But Jenny Beth Martin, founder of Tea Party Patriots Action, disagrees with the rule.
"It is the federal government making it harder to get rid of federal government employees. Remember, the president of the United States is elected by the people – and the president should have the ability to hire and fire people as he sees fit,” she argues.
As The Associated Press explains, the proposed rule comes in response to Schedule F, an executive order former President Donald Trump issued in 2020 that sought to allow for reclassifying tens of thousands of the 2.2 million federal employees and thus reduce their job security protections. Upon taking office, however, Joe Biden nullified Schedule F.
Martin acknowledges that to maintain stability in the country as it transitions from one administration to the next or one Congress to the next, the government does need to retain people who understand how government works.
“But if an administration wants to reduce the size of the workforce, the president should be able to do that,” she maintains. “There has to be the ability for a president to terminate people when he thinks that they are not doing the job, or he wants to reduce the size of government."
