Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday laid out his ideas to shut down the FBI and fire more than 1 million federal workers, lining up with increasingly sweeping conservative proposals targeting the federal government and particularly law enforcement.
Candidates trying to beat former President Donald Trump have responded to growing anger among GOP primary voters about the indictments against Trump as well as federal investigations and policies seen as unfairly targeting conservatives.
Ramaswamy’s proposals are among the broadest in the field. Speaking at the America First Policy Institute in Washington, he said he would try to reduce the federal employee headcount by half in his first year in office and by 75% during his first term if he makes it to the White House.
He wants to shut down five federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Education. He said he would also eliminate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Food and Nutrition Service.
Ramaswamy is not the only Republican candidate to suggest slashing the federal workforce. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Education.
And there’s a larger effort to dismantle the federal government that is being fueled by conservative organizations along with former Trump administration officials. They have been working on drafting a plan for when Trump returns to the White House to oust federal employees and replace them with like-minded officials.
I’m sorry Republican voters, literally all your candidates compete for who can declare who will hurt the most people to appeal to you, the people that vote for them on that metric.
For this reason, I cannot entertain the notion that you care about this nation, the people in it, or really even yourself.
Yeah, there’s clearly a market for these extreme beliefs, otherwise they wouldn’t win any elections, gerrymandering aside. At this point, a vote for most republican candidates is a vote against your own best interests and the interests of the country as a whole.
Also, firing a million federal employees is a “fuck around and find out” type situation. I don’t think most people realize how much of their shit gets done by faceless bureaucrats that you’ll never hear about. You like the air you breath to be clean-ish? I guarantee you can’t name the actual day to day people who keep it that way. Many of them would love it if you knew what they did. Fire them and you’ll quickly find out why they were important.
Also, you can’t just fire federal workers, most of them have protections. Most are unionized, too. So, good luck.
The GOP hasn’t had a positive agenda for 20 years.