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For election 2024, President Trump’s transition team is now saying they are likely to go it alone and skip any federal transition assistance in advance of inauguration day. That decision is making the deepest parts of the Deep State apparatus very nervous. That decision has major ramifications and could, likely would, include the incoming Trump administration setting up offices outside Washington DC.
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No, FTE equivalents.
A good chunk of it is DoD/military and VA.
And I misspoke. That number represents all three branches. Sorry, everyone. That'll teach me to reply to GAW stats threads while on-hold music is screaming in my ears.
Source: page 6 here
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43590.pdf
I don't know how big it "should" be, I only know that it will be hard to tease out better numbers given how inextricably connected these jobs are to some population centers (like in VA, TX, CA) and their economies. Also rural areas.
Then again I was never an (((Alisa Rosenbaum))) ["Ayn Rand"] fanboi. I grew up in a place that was burned over by Muh Free Markets. Plus I know enough about infrastructure/logistics industries to assert that the majority of Muh Free Market companies in them need taxpayer welfare to backstop/guarantee/level out profits.
The idea that DJT can move in, erase all government work, and hand it over to magic pixies in pinstripes sounds more to me like thirtysomething consultants' PR memes.
But shrinking tax revenue, funding via tariffs, and requiring agencies to make harder decisions and partner with people who actually know how to get things done strikes me as a good idea.
Finally, let's not forget that in many burned over communities (thanks Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obongo) that are still bailing out the gajillionaires who profited from 2008, government is the employer of last resort for many people. And we know that the "private" sector is hostile to founding stock and longer-established Americans, and their values. The "private" sector wants global neofeudalism that wrangles dusky dolts for mega profit.