My own experience as a government contractor for 14 years, permitting me to see what was happening up-close and personal, while still looking from the outside in is:
- Some federal employees are good and competent, even conscientious.
- Many federal employees aren’t good or competent, and many are little more than thieves.
- Even many of the good, competent and conscientious workers are put to work doing things which either add no value to our society as a whole, or actually detract therefrom.
- The basic problem isn’t so much the workers as it is the illegitimate scope of the federal government.
- If you knew who to axe, you could eliminate 50% of federal workers and probably see a rise in overall productivity of the government as a whole.
- If you eliminated the bad, incompetent and morally-corrupt AND eliminated even only the most egregiously destructive parts of the federal government, you could reduce the head count by 70% or more.
- It really wouldn’t matter that much, as even if you eliminated the entire civilian workforce (while still magically “accomplishing” all the government currently does), you’d reduce federal spending by only about 10%.
Honestly I’d favor just an attrition policy (LOTS of Federal employees are retiring within 10 yrs) to reduce staffing. That, plus making benefits more in line with comparable private-sector jobs, and consolidating duties over time as people leave, is a reasonable idea because, as you say, it’s not that big a chunk.
It’s ENTITLEMENTS that cost so much money, and nobody has the b@lls to touch those.