On August 14th, Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor said that the federal government is on track to cut about 300,000 workers this year, the largest reduction in nearly 80 years. There is much consternation at President Trump’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce, with warnings of collapsed services and the withering of society’s fabric. Even from conservatives cheering a reduced bureaucracy, it is important to understand why they seek such cuts. There are fiscal but also virtuous downstream effects.

For starters, there is the practical consequence of lower government expenditures. Indeed, at a cabinet meeting this year, Elon Musk said DOGE was on track to cut $150 billion from the federal budget for fiscal year 2026. Less money spent unnecessarily does not just lower government borrowing, but it also gives breathing room for policymakers to make wiser decisions with future dollars. For every large government program cut or slowed (such as recently enacted reductions in Medicaid’s rate of growth), it leaves room for those marginal ‘next’ dollars to be available for an emergency or even factored in for a tax cut. In other words, legislators and a president would have options to deal with either a crisis or propose pro-growth economic laws. To sacrifice now to give future opportunity to someone else is a concept parents understand well, unlike most Washington politicians.

Of course, with annual federal deficits now amounting to at least one trillion dollars, notions of budgeting, best use of the next available dollar and prudent investment may seem outdated. It may seem futile to try to have such judicious foresight as the fiscal hole only gets bigger. But one must start somewhere. For the voters, it also behooves us to remember where that begins. As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 48, Congress “alone has access to the pockets of the people.” As much as presidents can use executive authority to find efficiencies, incentives, and reductions, the voters must remember Congress’ role is not passive. Congress sets tax rates, and a better understanding of why and to what end they do will yield a wise electorate and a wiser dollar spent. We must be aware, and either agree or disagree, about why Congress taxes at ‘X’ rate to take from one to give to another.

As for a drop in the number of federal government employees, one also must look past just the short-term. To cheer a smaller headcount in the State Department by itself may seem cold. And the phrase ‘streamlined government’ may zip by us without more context. Why do we want fewer government employees? In his experience working for the Labor Department for a short period, the economist Thomas Sowell said the government was “nowhere close to being capable of doing what people on the Left wanted government to do. And that in fact, we’d be lucky if they didn’t make things worse.” Government employees are human beings with lives too, but the nature of their work does not always emulate what goes on in the private sector. For example, if a noble law is enacted to alleviate poverty, one may surmise that this is the beginning of a goal that will yield accountable work and a conclusion. Not so with government. There is often no acute ‘problem, plan, and solution’ catalyst which anyone with a daily to-do list in their job is accustomed to. Government will likely just perpetuate itself without meaningful metrics, often because no one prudently challenges a particular agency’s progress. That is, not until President Trump and DOGE. The federal government should not feel it has a windfall inheritance but instead an entrusted endowment from the taxpayer. In other words, it should be a government acting more virtuously.

In 1863 at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln uttered the now-famous phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” which has a thread running through it not fully appreciated. The use of the phrase “the people” three times is not just about the right to vote in elections, nor is it purely transactional. It means a self-government of people that should be self-aware and like-minded in virtues. Whether they are the representatives elected, the civil servants in government, the citizens voting or those impacted by the state’s work, they should share certain principles. In the last half century or so, many of those working in federal government have departed from “the people” in fundamentally misreading these precepts and their specific role. They no longer remain “the people” with the rest of us on a sustained and reciprocal pursuit. President Trump’s attempt to rectify that incongruity is of lasting consequence.

Alan Loncar is an attorney in Macomb County, Michigan.

Image: AT via Magic Studio