The target:
employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions,
I would start my discussion by saying these are useless positions anyway, and under no one’s observation or control.
And wait for counter arguments. I will wait and see.
Why not just abolish such jobs? They are needed to formulate and carry out policy implementation and make the bureaucracy work. Otherwise, the job of Cabinet secretary becomes that of a time server who delivers speeches but wonders what is going on in his agency and what is in all those papers he has to sign every day.