I hate to disagree with you here, but as I live in one of the few cost effectives areas in DC, and thus, around a lot of federal workers from the lower paying agencies, ie, USAID and DoEd, I can tell you that a large number of DC based USAID people are those who spent their 20s and often much their 30s in country in “dirt under your fingernails” type roles, often in war torn countries, but have rotated back stateside to have families, getting leadership roles.
I won’t for one second disagree that there is government bloat, but this hack and slash approach is throwing the baby out with the bath water. The impact of cutting so many people will be felt primarily in the poorest places on earth, by the most vulnerable.
And the individual tax savings will be minimal. The impact of cutting 200k feds, if you make $174,999.00/yr, will be about $23 on your federal income taxes. Scale up or down based on income, but, in general, you aren’t going to impact individual federal taxes significantly without dramatic cuts to Medicare, Social Security, or defense, which account. For nearly 75% of federal spending collectively, and none of which, imo, should be cut.
My experience with DoS people is that they waste a shitload of money, and don’t do very much, but it’s a small sample size for me personally. I just have a lot of USAID and DoEd friends who are capable and experienced, and few have survived these cuts.
