Thank God nearly all President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks had extensive experience in the private sector, because they’ll know how to run the government like a business.
State Department chief Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon Mobil prior to joining the Department, presiding over a company whose market value topped $400 billion. Everything came down to the bottom line – a fact true all throughout the private sector, and never the public sector. When a government agency runs a deficit, it’s merely “proof” that they need more funding!
Had Exxon Mobile been running the kind of deficits that Barack Obama did, they would’ve been in a state of crisis, looking for every possible cut that could be made until the problem was resolved. Of course, no career politician would want to risk ticking any of their voter base off by cutting a program favored by them. For obvious reasons, that’s not a concern that Tillerson has.
That’s why he’s taking action to clean house at the State Department.
H/T: The Hill
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is allegedly poised to cut 2,300 diplomats and civil servants from his agency.
The cuts represent about 9 percent of the agency’s workforce and comes as Tillerson looks to fulfill President Trump’s promise to reduce federal spending. The president signed an executive order last month aimed at making government “less wasteful.”
About 1,700 of the jobs on the chopping block will be cut through attrition, while 600 others would be done through buyouts, Bloomberg reported Friday. The cuts could be phased in over the next two years. Senior managers at the State Department were briefed on the plan on Wednesday.
Under Trump’s budget proposal released last month, the State Department would receive some of the deepest cuts — nearly 30 percent.
The department expanded significantly under the Obama administration. But diplomats and some lawmakers fear that the U.S. could lose influence around the world under the Trump administration’s proposed cuts, and have warned against divesting from soft power. At the same time, Trump has called for increases in defense spending and has vowed to “rebuild” the military, which he argues has been “depleted” in recent years.
Never does a government agency voluntarily reduce themselves in size. “We are undertaking a reorganization of the State Department, but it’s not just a collapse of boxes. What we really want to do is examine the process by which the men and women [of the department] … deliver on that mission,” Tillerson said.
Well, the times certainly are changing.
Do you like this move by the Trump administration? Should further cuts be added to these? Let us know in the comments below!
