On Tuesday, April 11th, at 4:00pm, Press Secretary Sean Spicer called an off camera/on the record press briefing. The topic at hand a Comprehensive Plan for reforming the federal government and reducing the federal civilian workforce. Held late in the afternoon, on a Tuesday, off camera, on a day when the United Airlines overbooking fiasco captured all mainstream news headlines, a major information release concerning federal government restructuring created barely a blip on the radar.

Mr. Michael Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), stepped to the microphone and offered twenty minutes of information concerning the next steps in Trump's plan to create a more efficient, well-oiled government out of the more than 22 million federal government employees.

Details of the restructuring

Mulvaney provided very general details of a plan that asks agency leaders from all corners of the federal government to collect ideas regarding ways in which their respective area could improve. He stressed that the preliminary idea collection period would last until June 2017 with finalization occurring in September 2017.

Although he did mentioned that in some areas, the federal government might grow (DoD/Veteran Affairs), the task at hand was to ensure good government which may require reductions in personnel. When pressed for more details regarding which agencies might bear the brunt of such reductions, Mulvaney suggested that attention be given to the President's budget to see the potential up and down changes.

Why change, why now?

The OMB director highlighted the fact that the start of the restructuring was occurring within the first 100 days of tenure for the POTUS and that it was fulfilling a portion of President Trump's campaign promise to drain the swamp. He recognized that a restructuring or reorganization or downsizing of the federal government may create a high level of uncertainty among agency employees, in particular employees within groups like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

However, he also mentioned that this type of federal government change has been a long time coming, with previous attempts occurring as far back as the Reagan administration. With the Republican party squarely in control, there is no time like the present to make such a change to the federal government.

Whether or not the American people will see change is still an unknown and will be until September 2017.
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