Al Gore
Appearances
Hidden Brain
Wellness 2.0: When It's All Too Much
Think of the impact of a couple hundred thousand refugees and then imagine a hundred million.
Hidden Brain
Wellness 2.0: When It's All Too Much
We have to act together to solve this global crisis. Our ability to live is what is at stake.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
For example, not with Congress. I mean, this is the thing about Doge that's so weird, is that they're ignoring Congress so much.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Ironically, I have been talking to my former colleagues and we think we've gotten more press for the National Performance Review in the last six weeks than we did in the whole seven years the damn thing ran.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
It's impossible to cut all $271 billion of this. You wouldn't have a government left. In other words, you're lucky to cut $50 billion.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Oh, yeah. No, we've got more contractors than we have civil servants.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
So a contract for goods would be anything from trucks for the Army to buying floor mats for a federal office building for when it rains, OK, or buying yellow legal pads for the Justice Department.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Services are anything from scientific expertise to NIH for cancer to janitorial services in the courthouse.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
The first time NOAA misses or predicts a hurricane late or the first time they're three days later in forecasting a hurricane than they should be and people don't have a chance to get out on time, what is Congress going to do? It's going to say, holy moly, put those people back, okay, or put some people back.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
And Musk quickly reinstated some of those employees. Yeah, that's right. Because of the way they did it, where they simply cut them off and they cut off their email instantly and take them out of all systems, they can't find some of them.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Now you have a cabinet secretary sitting there, and Doge says, cut this many people, and the cabinet secretary says, hey, wait a minute, just hold your horses, right? I want to look and see.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
He then said, hold on, hold your horses. I under statute, the secretary of defense has to justify before he does any firing. He has to study and justify that the firing will not decrease our national defense readiness. So he had to go through that step. OK, and he's still going to cut people.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
But it's I'm thinking that this may happen in a less chaotic and somewhat more sensible way once there are cabinet secretaries in place.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
That was something that I was hoping the Doge effort would do, is cut regulations. Because, I mean, every couple of years you got to do this because some regulations just get obsolete.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Absolutely. Yep. You think that? I do think that. I do think that. You can probably always find 5%, maybe 10% in waste and unnecessary workers.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Al Gore was my boss. Yes, I reported to Al Gore.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Back in 1993, no federal agency had a website. And we started telling agencies to build websites.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
You have to go into the agencies and figure out what they're doing that's important, that you don't want to mess up, and what they're doing that, frankly, isn't all that important.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
A lot of times the inefficiencies were not people inefficiencies. A lot of times the inefficiencies were obsolete statutes or obsolete regulations that were requiring the civil service to do things in a sort of backwards convoluted way that was costing money and costing time.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
They added cost. They would add cost to everything from hammers and staplers to airplanes.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Oh, because, you know, because I heard that they didn't. People would say, oh, God, you're Elaine K. Mark. You know, and I think today they think I'm wonderful and wish I was back.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
any savings. We introduced something called the Hammer Awards in the Clinton administration. And here is what it consisted of. A big, tacky picture frame with some blue velvet in the back and a hammer attached to it and a red, white and blue ribbon and a note from Al Gore, handwritten, that said, thank you for creating a government that works better and costs less.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Yeah, it was a real hammer. Yeah, we put a real hammer in a real picture frame. I mean, it was pretty tacky looking.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
their bad scrap tea. I don't know why they were still in the government, right? I guess to assure the quality of the tea coming into the United States. But it was obviously silly. It was obviously unnecessary, and we closed it.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Mohair is a fabric, OK, that goes in sweaters and stuff. All right.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Before and during the Korean War. We knew that American soldiers were going to be fighting in very cold territory. And we wanted to make sure there was enough wool and mohair for their uniforms. So, in fact, a subsidy was given to farmers under national defense thinking so that we'd have enough wool and mohair for uniforms.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Domestic of wool and mohair. Obviously, since the Korean War, which was in the 1950s, right, it was no longer a national defense priority to have enough wool and mohair around. And so we got rid of the subsidy. It can be quite hard to get rid of a subsidy. Yeah.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
What was the pushback like? They pushed back on it. And in fact, the subsidy came back. Of course. A couple of years later, it came back in a lesser form, but it did come back. To Elaine, nothing felt easy to get rid of.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Oh, no, you go to Congress. Oh, you go to Congress. Yeah. To reverse the stat, they make them, they got to reverse them. So we went to Congress and we had to go one by one to some of the really old guys and convince them that we needed a new bill.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
It was a process, but we passed a lot of laws. We passed, I think, about 100 laws over the seven years. So, I mean, it's not impossible.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
Sorry, yes, running up. Yeah, so 426,000. So, like, you did fire a ton of people. Well, but remember, a lot of these were not firings. Some of them were. A lot of these were buyouts. We had buyout authority from the Congress, which these guys don't, by the way. We had hiring freezes, which these guys are using.
Planet Money
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
It worked. It was not as dramatic as what they're doing now. But we did have backlash. What we did not have were lawsuits. OK, nobody sued us because we went through the established channels for doing these things.