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Carl Higbie’s blunt message on Newsmax — that the federal government needs to be trimmed and that many of these jobs do little for hardworking Americans — is exactly the common-sense fury voters sent to Washington. On his FRONTLINE program he applauded President Trump’s aggressive steps to shrink the bureaucracy, a move that has already started to deliver tangible reductions in the federal rolls.
The numbers are not flattering to the administrative state: the civilian federal workforce has shrunk roughly 12 percent since President Trump returned to office, a clear signal that the administration is following through on promises to cut waste and inefficiency. Alongside voluntary departures, the White House has moved thousands of policy-facing positions into a new Schedule Policy/Career category to make accountability and removals more straightforward.
Those who run the federal personnel system have also rewritten rules to speed up the removal of underperforming employees and to make agencies more responsive to taxpayers, not to party hacks or entrenched bureaucrats. The Office of Personnel Management’s recent final rule and related proposals target long-standing problems with performance management and appeals that have protected chronic underperformance.
Of course, the Left is shrieking about “illegal firings” and threatening lawsuits — predictable hand-wringing from people who profit from the status quo. Congressional Democrats and union allies have framed routine workforce reorganization as an assault, but their defense of permanency for every federal sinecure only preserves the swamp and raises costs for ordinary Americans.
Patriots should celebrate the result: fewer taxpayers subsidizing redundant layers of administration, and a government refocused on its core constitutional duties. These changes do not make government small for ideology’s sake; they restore competence and prioritize frontline services over careerist bloat that too often advances political agendas instead of the public interest.
If conservatives want lasting reform, we must keep pushing to pare back the administrative state and defend leaders who are willing to do the hard work of reform. Carl Higbie is voicing what many Americans feel — a refusal to watch the federal bureaucracy balloon while families tighten budgets — and the country will be stronger if Washington finally learns to live within its means and answer to the people.
