Washington
\nThe campaign by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the US bureaucracy spread on Friday, firing more than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans.
\nWorkers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated in a drive that so far has largely \u2014 but not exclusively \u2014 targeted probationary employees in their first year on the job who have fewer employment protections.
\nThe firings, reported by Reuters and other major US media outlets, are in addition to the roughly 75,000 workers who have taken a buyout that Trump and Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily, according to the White House.
\nThat equals about 3% of the 2.3 million person civilian workforce.
\nTrump says the federal government is too bloated and too much money is lost to waste and fraud. The government has some $36 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for reform.
\nBut congressional Democrats say Trump is encroaching on the legislature\u2019s constitutional authority over federal spending, even as his fellow Republicans who control majorities in both chambers of Congress have largely supported the moves.
\nThe speed and breadth of Musk\u2019s effort has produced growing frustration among some of Trump\u2019s aides over a lack of coordination, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, sources told Reuters.
\nIn addition to the job reductions, Trump and Musk have tried to gut civil-service protections for career employees, frozen most US foreign aid and attempted to shutter some government agencies such as the US Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CFPB almost entirely.
\nAlmost half of the probationary workers at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and others at the National Institutes of Health are being forced out, sources familiar with the job cuts told Reuters.
\nThe US Forest Service is firing around 3,400 recent hires, while the National Park Service is terminating about 1,000, people familiar with the plans said on Friday.
\nThe tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service is preparing to fire thousands of workers next week, two people familiar with the matter said, a move that could squeeze resources ahead of Americans\u2019 April 15 deadline to file income taxes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington The campaign by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the US bureaucracy spread on Friday, firing more than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans. Workers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-461785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n