Discussion of the issues, if you can call it that, has sort of paused while the political class talks about the future of President Joe Biden. Others wonder what effect something called Project 2025 from the conservative Heritage Foundation might have on a potential Trump presidency. Here with some musings on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin is the staff vice president at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, John Hatton.

Interview transcript: 

Tom Temin
John, good to have you back.

John Hatton
Thanks for having me.

Tom Temin
Project 2025. I can’t say I’ve actually read it. I’ve heard about it. And I heard the president, the former president, say that he doesn’t endorse it in its entirety. I take it you’ve read it? What’s in there? What’s it all about?

John Hatton
I haven’t read the entire thing, but I have read the federal workforce related section of it. And I think, you know, we’ve heard from our members concerns about this, and a lot of it is related to policies like schedule. And, you know, with regard to, is this a future Trump administration policy? I think it’s a little bit too early to say that. I think it could have significant influence on a future Trump administration. The director of Project 2025 is the former chief of staff at OPM. So, particularly as it relates to personnel, I think that could be influential. But when you’re looking to what policies would a future Trump administration implement? I think there’s honestly better evidence in what he did in his last administration, and what he’s saying on the campaign trail than Project 2025. Outside of the federal workforce provisions, there’s a whole host of other policy proposals. The design of this is to try to have a set of conservative policy proposals led by Heritage, but a lot of other conservative groups. You know, a lot of these authors of these sections have ties to the Trump administration.

Tom Temin
What does it say about the federal workforce in the Project 2025?

John Hatton
So, some of the things are, you know, includes endorsement of Schedule F, but again, President Trump previously issued an executive order instituting Schedule F, which, again, is a policy that would take away merit-based system protections from a whole host of top-level federal employees. So, Trump did that, has done that, and he has, and he also has said, indicated support for that on the campaign trail. Some of the other provisions, again, are back to what the Trump administration did in the past some of the executive orders on union activities, some of the executive orders on performance changes in terms of expedited removal, shortened times for notice, and things like that. So, it’s not a lot new. And outside of those things that are either previously done by the Trump administration, or specifically endorsing the campaign, some of the stuff isn’t as radical, expanding things or donor or Obama in terms of USA-hired merit examinations. So, I would say it’s a mixed bag of what of the some of the policy proposals and the ones that were most concerned about. And some of these aren’t necessarily concerning. They’re, you know, within the realm of reasonable proposals. We’re most concerned about that Schedule F proposal, which again, is talked about on the campaign trail. We think that’s really eroding the basic merit-based civil service. You know, it’s a difference between preserving the merit-based civil service and reforming it and throwing it out. And I think that’s the biggest difference we’ve seen on Schedule F.

Tom Temin
I mean, sometimes candidates in primaries, as they have in the last season, said that they would get rid of large numbers of federal employees, but the only way you do that is to get rid of agencies. And there’s a little bit of a difference there. If there’s some function you don’t think the government should do and you want to get rid of the agency that does it, that’s one thing. It’s another thing to treat properly the federal employees that you do have, for what you feel the government should do.

John Hatton
Project 2025, I think, we eliminate, suggests eliminating the Department of Education. And that’s, again, that’s a function role of government policy issue. But it’s not necessarily a federal workforce issue. Let’s say one of the things that’s nice to see is there’s some recognition in the Project 2025, that things like hiring freezes, and reductions in forces and buyouts don’t necessarily work in terms of saving money. And, so, there’s actually a couple of things I’d be, I’d love to, you know, hopefully we can stop some bad policy and future administration. But again, I think the Schedule F stuff. And that also ties into part of what the Project 2025 is trying to do. It’s not just a policy playbook. It’s also a plan to bring in personnel to implement that policy. So, that’s step one of that, is going to be bringing the political appointees right away. And they want to bring in those political appointees, and your views on that really depend on your views on the underlying issues in the campaign. I don’t know if that’s a federal workforce related issue. The next level, though, is expanding that political workforce from those that 3,000 or 4,000 to 50,000, and that would be through Schedule F. And I think that’s our concern is that it’s not just stopping at the political appointees, and there’s a desire to do that. But again, how it gets there, whether it gets there, I think that our concern really relies on that Schedule F aspect.

Tom Temin
We are speaking with John Hatton, staff vice president at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, because getting to the idea of that 50,000. I mean, it’s incumbent on those 50,000 that are there but not under Schedule F, to do the bidding of the administration that comes in left or right. I remember during the Clinton administration, a high-level long-term serving career federal official in the welfare area resigned publicly. It was a big, you know, minor stink, for 18 hours, because he didn’t like, you know, the new policies on welfare at that time. And, so, the question then becomes is, what can those 4,000, whoever they are, what can those 50,000, whoever they are, that are not the 4,000 appointed, do to stay in the rails of what constitutes proper civil service, even if they don’t like the policies that an administration has brought in? Isn’t that the essential question?

John Hatton
I think that is the essential question. And, I mean, the argument that those in favor of Schedule F make is that they need this to discipline to make sure those 50,000 are carrying out the orders, the political appointees. Again, in our view, that’s a step way too far, in terms of 100, you’re getting rid of all the merit-based protections. So, you could easily just say, yes, this is why we want to do this, but we were going to take anybody, we’re worried that anybody who has ever supported a Democrat in the past, you know, we would worry about this on the flip side for Democrats doing to Republicans as well, that they shouldn’t be in here, because we can’t trust them. Right? And so that’s our concern. And we fully agree that the civil servants in, should be serving the legitimate policy interests of any administration duly elected by the American people. Right? And, so, they should not be slow walking or being insubordinate in that. And to the extent that there are issues with that, that’s legitimate to look at in terms of how to address that, again, Schedule F, I think, goes way, way too far in that, and could really lead to, again, a bringing back the spoil system corruption, getting rid of people because they’re, you know, they don’t support your political party. There’s a loyalty test and things like that.

John Hatton
And, so, that’s the real concern. You know, there’s a few other things in the Project 2025, federal workforce subchapter, on, that would at least indicate a support for reducing pay and reducing benefits as well. It’s not very specific on that. We’ve seen way worse things out there, specifically on those issues as well. So, there are other things that we’re concerned about. But I think our main concern is the Schedule F issue.

Tom Temin
Got it.  And in the meantime, shorter term reality fill, there is, you know, passage of house spending bills, not yet Senate spending bills, and nobody believes that anything will be reconciled by September 30. And so where do we head from here? Just another year, like they’ve always been?

John Hatton
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s good that they’re trying to work on bills on the committee and through the House floor as well, that hopefully they can make enough progress up to the point that they could set the stage for negotiations in the lame duck. But I agree with you, there’s, nobody is even considering the fact that they wouldn’t pass a CR to get through the election. You know, there’s some progress the Senate, there’s a bipartisan agreement in the Senate on overall top line spending levels, of course, they need to negotiate that with the house as well. And the House is making progress on their bills through committee, the Senate will start making progress on their bills. So, I think there’s at least positive signs that we’re working on things even if it’s very clear that nothing’s going to happen. You know, nothing’s going to get to the president’s desk prior to the election.

Tom Temin
So, the best advice now for whatever schedule you’re in is just expect a CR, because that’s what happens in election years. And this one is particularly contentious. I guess they all are, really. No worse than, you know, Nixon and Humphrey.

John Hatton
My memory doesn’t go back quite that far. But yeah, I mean, I think there’s, yeah, there’s always a contentious election. Everybody says it’s the most important one, ever. And as the decisions have become, there’s greater degrees of partisanship and a greater spreading of the political parties. And, so, I think they have, over time, become more, you know, the choices become a little bit more distinct than perhaps in the past. But I think as far as what Congress is going to do to get to the president, it’s going to be a CR and my hope is they actually do something in the lame duck and figure it out, as opposed to then kicking the can down the road again until the new year, which has been a bad habit of Congress recently.

Tom Temin
John Hatton, the staff vice president at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, NARFE. As always, thanks for joining me.

John Hatton
Thank you for having me.

Tom Temin
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