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Drain It: Trump Announces Brutal Changes to Gov't Worker Pay

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President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget aims to bring brutal changes to the federal civilian workforce, and it could spell trouble for some employees who do not measure up.

The budget, which is set to be released Monday, contains some of the biggest reforms to the workforce in decades.

To put it simply, Trump’s plan seeks to “hire the best and fire the worst,” USA Today reported.

Senior officials with the Office of Management and Budget who spoke anonymously with The Washington Times said the plan aimed to put a stop to regular, tenure-and merit-based raises for more than 1.5 million federal workers and instead focus on performance-based raises.

In other words, federal employees will now have to work hard for their raises, and those who do not perform well could be fired.

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The proposal would reportedly generate $10 billion over 10 years for performance-based payments.

The Washington Examiner reported that officials said the overall goal of the budget was to bring the 1950s-styled Civil Service into the digital age.

Officials also said annual reviews that now give “everybody” a grade of four or five on a scale of five would be eliminated. Employee benefits, which can be 47 percent higher than those in the private workforce, will also be cut.

Other changes proposed in the budget include creating a bonus pool to reward good employees, retraining of employees and reassigning workers where they are needed, according to The Examiner.

Do you think we need to clean out the federal government?

While officials did not indicate how the changes would impact the size of the the government after the three years of reform, “it was clear that many workers in jobs that private industry has automated will be out,” the Examiner reported.

USA Today reported that the president is using the VA Accountability Act as a model for the budget plan, noting that the White House claimed that the law resulted in 1,470 employees being terminated, 443 suspensions and 83 demotions last year.

That’s called draining the swamp.

“This is a subject that essentially people have ignored,” a top Trump budget official said, according to The Examiner. “The American people elected a president that promised dramatic change.”

Indeed, they did.

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On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump called for a leaner federal government, and he reiterated that idea during the State of the Union address, where he called on Congress to “empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”

This is what happens when you put a businessman, whose trademark phrase happens to be “You’re fired,” in the White House.

Share this story on Facebook and Twitter if you like the sound of President Trump’s 2019 budget.

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