In a recent episode of Pod Save America, the hosts argued there was a “right” and “wrong” way to reduce the size of the federal government. Hosts Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer embraced the idea that the federal workforce is a sprawling entity comprising too many bureaucrats, who can be cut with minimal impact to governmental operations. They claimed there was a “proper way” to identify budget cuts, send them to Congress, and give employees severance. In their view, the key is to have a plan that focuses on essential workers, identifies where there is an excess of workers, and consider, among other things, which positions are harder to hire for. The basic summary of their position is that while it wouldn’t hurt to slash the federal government in the pursuit of efficiency, the Trump administration is going about it the “wrong” way.
We wholeheartedly disagree with that perspective. What the Trump administration is doing is indeed incredibly destructive and “wrong” and ostensibly center, center left and left wing voices need to push back against the idea that there’s a “right” way to slash the federal budget and workforce. There’s a perception of bloated government, but the opposite is true. Government staffing and budgets have not kept pace with inflation or population growth. In fact, the non-defense federal workforce has been shrinking for decades.
A well-funded and well-staffed government can protect Americans from harm and help reduce the deficit. Do we think the threats from rapacious corporations have been increasing or decreasing? Threats requiring a collective response, such as climate change or pandemics? We should be pushing for more resources for non-defense agencies, not less.
We do not need to slash the government. The government is the collective action mechanism to protect people’s livelihood, safety and wellbeing.
The American public needs a robust social safety net. The government can provide reliable assistance for people who have fallen on hard times. Yet agencies like the Social Security Administration (which determines eligibility for benefits that would financially support people who paid into the system and have been unable to work for at least a year) are severely understaffed.
Sufficient government capacity can protect livelihoods. Anyone may become suddenly unable to work due to accidents or illness. In May 2016, it took an average of 526 days for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to process an appeal for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Without enough staff, people in need of disability insurance may be left without a source of livelihood for over a year. It is in the interest of all Americans to ensure we can access benefits (we pay into) as quickly as possible, and that’s done through increasing agency capacity.
Social Security also demonstrates how it is frequently the case that government is more efficient than the private sector. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, “Universal participation and the absence of means-testing make Social Security very efficient to administer. Administrative costs amount to only 0.5 percent of annual benefits, far below the percentages for private retirement annuities.”
Maybe government inspectors should look into the efficiency of the annuity industry instead of unleashing DOGE on the SSA.
The environment and public health matter to us all.
Government capacity also extends to protecting the environment and public health. Increased funding and staffing at agencies like the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) can promote public health, protect American taxpayers, recover federal funds, and fund conservation efforts by fining corporate lawbreakers.
In 2021, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (ATR) delayed investigations into Google and Apple for months due to funding concerns. This is an example of how underfunding can hurt the public. Without the capacity to enforce antitrust law, Americans are vulnerable to exploitation by giant corporations without consequences. Indeed, we argued for an additional “price fixing division” in 2024 in recognition of the scope of the problem posed by corporate price gougers. Favreau has previously derided the Democratic economists who downplayed corporate price gouging—but he needs to recognize that to take it seriously means more rather than less government.
As noted in a 2018 Lancet article, “lead abatement programs have been underfunded despite an estimated return between $17 and $221 for every $1 investment.” And even in a core neoliberal area of complaint with government—permitting—there is considerable evidence that “Staffing shortages undermine efforts to coordinate across agencies, inviting inconsistency, redundancy, inefficiency, and delay.” Indeed, “inadequate agency budgets” and “staff turnover” are two of the key impediments to prompt consideration of requests under the National Environmental Policy Act. More government can mean faster government.
And of course we could invoke food safety, air traffic control, workplace safety, and many other issues from processing asylum requests to identifying Medicare fraud by private equity owned health care providers.
The government is not inherently wasteful and the private sector is not
inherently more efficient than the government.
Funding non-defense agencies in the federal government can be the opposite of wasteful, especially funding enforcement efforts. Funding corporate crackdown efforts, especially at agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, can reduce the deficit and recoup funds for the government, which ultimately benefits taxpayers.
The idea that the government is more inefficient than corporate America is a bogus assumption and a gift to the right wing whenever it is implicitly endorsed by figures associated with the center left. The premise that the private sector—Silicon Valley in this case—should assess the efficiency of government is based on the idea that Silicon Valley is efficient and government is not. This premise is common to both parties, since Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton ushered in the neoliberal age within the Democratic Party, but it is frankly ridiculous. Outsourcing tasks the government can do to the private sector often leads to inefficiencies.
For example, outsourcing tasks that staff at the Forest Service can do negatively affects public lands, from the quality of hiking trails, campgrounds, and bathrooms to biodiversity monitoring and wildfire risk mitigation. As my colleague Kenny Stancil writes: “That last item will almost certainly lead to greater desertion of vulnerable communities by insurers along with more devastating wildfires.”
I mean, last time we checked, it was the government that had to bail out Silicon Valley Bank and its wildly imprudent venture capitalists, not the other way around. And Elon Musk has been flouting the law without serious consequences for decades, as we have compiled. While Musk might think his tens of billions or dollars in compensation is warranted (we’re not joking), we view the level of wealth Musk has extracted from Tesla (indeed, far more wealth than net profits in its history) as a form of waste in and of itself.
Let’s have a center-left that doesn’t double down on pernicious right wing or neoliberal narratives.
In all, instead of embracing the idea that government is bloated and inefficient, the left should recognize the critical role that government agencies play in protecting our safety, health, and economic well-being. Rather than cutting back, we should push for the expansion and proper funding of agencies that work to benefit the public, hold corporations accountable, and promote social equity. The idea that the government is inefficient while the private sector is always more efficient is a misleading and harmful narrative that weakens the very institutions that Americans rely on. We need to push back against this myth and ensure the government has the resources it needs to serve the people effectively.
“Jon Favreau” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0