When most hear MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, they no doubt think of physical – maybe even mental – health. Well, how about financial well-being? Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services is all about trimming the fat of government waste, saving the taxpayers money, and restructuring the department to focus on the MAHA goal. However, HHS isn’t the only government entity dropping some unneeded weight.
HHS Is Getting Into Shape
The Trump administration announced Thursday, March 27, that it would restructure the US Department of Health and Human Services and that 20,000 full-time jobs have been or would be cut – about a fourth of the department’s workforce. Roughly half of those, however, took what the administration calls the “Fork in the Road” offer to accept a buyout and retire early. This brings the total HHS workforce from around 82,000 to about 62,000, and the 28 divisions are now just 15.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl,” HHS Secretary Kennedy said in a press release. “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic. This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer,” he concluded.
A fact sheet provided by the agency shows the cuts include 3,500 full-time employees at the FDA, 2,400 at the CDC, 1,200 at NIH, and 300 at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The decrease in manpower will reportedly save about $1.8 billion – and won’t affect Medicare or Medicaid. As Kennedy later pointed out in defense of the cuts, essential personnel will remain on the staff. “We’re not cutting front-line workers, we’re cutting administrators, and we’re consolidating the agency to make it more efficient,” he explained.
“We have over 100 comms departments. You have 40 procurement departments. We have dozens of IT departments, dozens of HR departments, none of them talk to each other,” Kennedy said in an interview with Chris Cuomo.
“And what we’re trying to do now is to streamline the agency, to eliminate the redundancies and to focus the mission so that everybody who is at HHS is going to wake up every morning and say, ‘What am I going to do today to Make America Healthy Again,’ and we’re going to make it easier for those who are not cutting scientists,” he added.
A ‘Whole of Government’ Reduction
The New York Times compiled a list of agencies detailing the percentage of their workforces reduced through layoffs or buyouts. All told, 49,110 have been laid off, 75,000 have taken the payout, and another 171,080 “reductions” are planned.
Under the heading “Confirmed reductions so far, by agency,” NYT lists the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Voice of America as “More than 99%.” The Department of Education is down 46% and HHS 16%. Both the IRS and the Department of Energy have lost 13% of their employees, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is down 12%, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lost 11% of its personnel. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Science Foundation both trimmed 10%.
A New Development for Department of State and USAID
Note that USAID is listed as losing more than 99% of its workforce. That’s because it’s basically closed – or will be, soon enough. In a letter to Congress and a memo sent to employees, the State Department announced on Friday that it would completely absorb the parts of USAID that are aligned with the vision of the current administration and scrap the rest.
Some will go on July 1; others have until September 2. But every employee of the US Agency for International Development who doesn’t fill one of 15 roles mandated by federal law will be out of a job this year. They have been given their notice far in advance, as well as a choice: Stick around until the lights go out or volunteer for administrative leave to have time to make other arrangements.
The letter to Congress, written by Paul Guaglianone, a senior official in the State’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs, explains the intent is to “undertake a reorganization that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the Department by July 1, 2025, and discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with Administration priorities.”
Still, President Trump promised that, even without USAID, many international humanitarian efforts would continue. For example, he said Myanmar would still get US assistance after its recent devastating earthquake. The agency, which will soon employ just 15 people, had a staff of about 10,000 when Trump took office.
The Efficiency of DOGE?
Doge.gov now claims an estimated savings of $130 billion, or about $807.45 per taxpayer. When Liberty Nation News last checked in with DOGE on March 8, the reported number was $105 billion, or about $652 per taxpayer. That’s more than a billion a day since then in savings, assuming their numbers are accurate – not bad progress at all.
The “Workforce” tab hasn’t been updated. So, while the $130 billion in reported savings does reflect some of these cuts, many have likely not been added yet – and, of course, those coming in the near future have not been included. As DOGE noted, the average federal employee makes $93,828 a year. Now, many of those for whom unemployment looms won’t have achieved quite that salary, but some probably make a bit more. It’s the average, and that’s as good a starting point for some ballpark estimates as any other number.
Just for giggles, let’s assume the 171,080 expected cuts that The New York Times listed are all worth $90,000 a year. That’s another annual savings of more than $15 billion in payroll alone. Again, that estimate is almost certainly not accurate. But it paints a dramatic picture, and the point it demonstrates remains, even if the exact amounts vary. The Swamp might not be drained yet – but the waterline certainly has dropped.
