Election & Politics #175 | By: Naja Barnes | March 20, 2025
Featured Photo: CDC
On February 11th, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal workforce and to reduce the size of the government and federal spending. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is executing that mission, echoing the need to regulate government spending and amplify government efficiency. Recently Musks’s actions to summarily layoff federal workers have been successfully challenged in the courts. In all probability the Trump administration will appeal some of the court decisions; so it remains to be seen whether or not Trump’s downsizing of the federal workforce will succeed.
The downsizing of the United States government has resulted in thousands of federal employees being laid off, bought out, and pressured into quitting. That reality highlights the contradiction of DOGE’s mission to increase government efficiency. The massive firings of critical departments in government directly threaten government proficiency, potentially hindering its efficiency due to the lack of people needed for certain departments to succeed in their missions and duties.
That predicament poses a question: What will suffer from Trump’s mission to downsize the government?
Among the federal employees who were fired were those who worked for the Department of the Interior and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A common thread among these departments is their mission to protect public safety, which could be threatened by DOGE’s plan to downsize the United States government.
Analysis
The Department of the Interior
Around February 14th, 2025, the government firings began affecting the Department of the Interior, which protects and manages the natural resources and cultural heritage of the United States. Thousands of National Park Service staff were also fired, such as Park Rangers, who work to protect and preserve public lands, state parks, and monuments. Their general duties include greeting visitors, providing guided tours, maintaining the parks, ensuring that visitors are following the law, and protecting the wildlife. Park Rangers’ duties are necessary in ensuring the public’s safety, and their absence may be felt and negatively impact the wildlife, the environment, and the humans they serve.
When someone is lost, hurt, or unable to get to safety, Park Rangers are trained to be first responders in an Emergency. They often lead rescue missions, provide medical assistance, and call for help. Park Rangers also ensure public safety by monitoring the wildlife in the area, tracking animal movements, and educating visitors on the area and potential dangers posed by wildlife.
Park Rangers ensure the safety of wildlife by protecting them from poachers and reckless visitors. Their upkeep of the parks positively affects the wildlife by ensuring that their habitats are habitable.
Some Park Rangers are trained to handle firefighting in instances of wildfires. They also work with local communities to promote conservation efforts, replanting native vegetation and removing harmful and evasive species.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is responsible for addressing housing needs, improving communities, and enforcing fair housing laws through community development. In January 2024, HUD reported that approximately 770,000 people experienced houselessness. That number is presumed to increase due to the massive government firings and downsizing. DOGE plans to reduce HUD’s staffing by half, which will affect local nonprofits’ ability to receive funding to provide housing, rental assistance, and health access to communities that need it.
With the lack of funding and manpower needed to provide homes and resources for the unhoused, public safety issues may increase. The threat that houselessness poses to public safety is the increased vulnerability of unhoused people to violence and criminalization.
Those who are unhoused are increasingly exposed to harm and violence due to the lack of access to safe and secure shelter. Acts of violence against unhoused people are thought to be motivated by the perpetrator’s bias of the unhoused community and how houselessness is discussed in society. This violence could be exacerbated by the criminalization of houselessness, which punishes those who participate in activities in public, such as sleeping, eating, and asking for money. Those actions could bring criminal penalties to those unhoused, such as jail time, fines, and arrests, which only cause more harm and obstacles for those in need of shelter.
In conclusion, downsizing the United States Government may decrease government spending but increase other issues, such as threats to public safety. It may also affect the government’s ability to do its job efficiently, conflicting with DOGE’s mission to increase government efficiency.
Engagement Resources
- We all suffer from federal workforce cuts
https://www.selc.org/news/we-all-suffer-from-federal-workforce-cuts/ - https://www.npca.org/, an independent nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to advocating on behalf of the National Park System
- Trump administration plans mass firing at office that funds homelessness programs
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/22/g-s1-50199/doge-trump-hud-cuts-homeless-housing-programs - How the Trump Administration is Harming People and Undermining Government
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=29683