Project 2025: The Plan to Fire Government Employees Who Are Not Loyal
One of the most alarming plans for Project 2025 is to roll back how government operates to 1883 when the Civil Service Act was passed. The Civil Service Act was passed by congress to fix a “spoils system” that caused incompetence, graft, corruption, and theft according to the book, Biography of an Ideal: A History of the Federal Civil Service. Before this Act, government workers were fired if they were sufficiently loyal to the President and his/her agenda.
How does rolling back government to 1883 “make America great again?” When did America STOP being great?
Today, it’s normal that every new administration replaces “politically appointed” leadership of agencies and departments while other employees at the middle and lower levels of the federal government are “career professionals,” who are experts in their fields and serve regardless of the political party of the person in the White House.
These important employees provide the wide range of essential services that Americans expect from their government and these people became protected by the 1883 Civil Service Act. They are called “The Competent State.” But the right-wing refers to these employees as “The Deep State,” and they want to eliminate their job protections which would cause chaos in government at all levels of operations.
The process of returning our government to the “spoils system” began in the final months of Donald Trump’s administration when he attempted, unsuccessfully, to implement a new category of Civil Service positions called “Schedule F” for employees in positions with significant responsibility. With Schedule F, they could be terminated for any reason, including the perception that they were not sufficiently loyal to the President and his/her agenda.
Project 2025 calls for the reinstatement of Schedule F which would expand presidential power and impact an estimated 50,000 or more government workers, creating a system of loyalty to the president’s agenda or be fired.
The website Protect Democracy describes Schedule F this way:
“Schedule F is an effort to redirect regulatory, administrative, and investigatory functions of the government away from the public interest and toward the president’s interests. This makes it easier for an aspiring authoritarian American president to abuse his power to punish, intimidate, and silence opponents by making government aid, contracts, licenses, merger approvals, tax benefits, permits, civil penalties, relief aid, grants, and regulatory waivers contingent on showing personal fidelity.”
This is the future of our federal government if Trump is elected, and Project 2025 is followed. To prevent this, vote for Democrats!
For more information about this topic, visit the Charles F. Kettering Foundation at https://www.kettering.org/news/the-schedule-f-threat-to-democracy-a-project-2025-explainer/