OPINION:

All of Washington is acting like their hair is on fire in response to the DOGE requirement that federal employees list what they accomplished last week.

However, the deeper problem is that federal employment is growing faster than private employment. The federal workforce is now larger than the total number of manufacturing, construction and mining workers combined.

From Bureau of Labor Statistics data, we know that it’s hard to fire a federal employee and harder to get them to leave. The quit rate in the federal government is only one-third as high as the quit rate for those who work in the private sector. In a private company, it’s up or out. The federal unions and the workers know how to play.

They play the employment game like a master chess player. Try to fire an incompetent, belligerent or chronically tardy federal worker and prepare for a blizzard of discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuits. It’s a well-honed racket.

For federal managers trying to do right by the taxpayers, keeping the worst workers on the payroll is less stressful and less costly.

It’s unfair and demoralizing to the dedicated federal workers — and there are hundreds of thousands of them — who truly want to serve the country and help people. Even they get sucked into a punch-the-time-clock reward system that merely encourages mediocrity.

Until now. President Trump and Elon Musk are attempting to build a highly professional civil service workforce. They want to fire the bad actors and the workers who slack off. Everyone knows who they are.

Why shouldn’t a federal worker face the same scrutiny and job performance standards that are routine in the private sector? That’s especially true when the employer is losing money — in this case, to the tune of $2 trillion a year.

In his first term, Mr. Trump tried to install a pay-for-performance standard in the civil service system. This would have greatly benefited the best employees.

In round one, like President Reagan in the 1980s, Mr. Trump got his head handed to him for “politicizing” the hallowed civil service system. It was man against machine, and the machine won.

During the Biden years, the government was the fastest-growing industry for jobs, more than manufacturing, construction, mining and drilling combined.

Trump 2.0 attempts to reverse that trend and downsize a bloated federal workforce. This will lead to a leaner, more productive and customer-responsive work environment — maybe one that is more diverse in its politics.

The public employee union is fighting this as if federal employees were facing a guillotine, but most budget-conscious Americans say it’s about time.

• Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity.