To all you Democrats freaking out over President Trump’s buyout program, I present to you a piece of history.
April 04, 1995:
“A major element of my strategy was my commitment to streamline and cut the Federal work force. For too long in Washington, we have had too many layers of bureaucracy, too many workers whose main job was to check on the work of other workers rather than to perform useful work themselves. As the National Performance Review noted, we had good people trapped in bad systems. I promised to cut the work force, and that's what I'm doing.”
Through our efforts, we have already cut the work force by 102,000 positions and we are on track to cut it by a total of 272,900 positions, bringing it to its smallest size since John Kennedy was President.”
“While committed to cutting the work force, we want to do it in a humane way. We faced the same dilemma that confronted many private companies; they needed to downsize but wanted to avoid firing large numbers of loyal employees. Many of them have given people an incentive to leave by offering "buyouts." We wanted to do the same.”
“Early last year, Congress approved my request to allow non-Defense agencies to offer buyouts of up to $25,000 a person. The Defense Department and a few other agencies already could offer buyouts under existing law. Because normal attrition will help us downsize in the future, we offered buyouts only until March 31, 1995, which was last Friday.”
“Looking back, I can safely say that our buyout program has been a huge success. It achieved what we had hoped: to help us cut the work force in a fiscally responsible and humane way.”
-Bill Clinton