Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said in an interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this past weekend that she would dramatically cut the size of the federal workforce through attrition as president.
“When you have a big, bloated bureaucracy that costs too much, that is becoming inept (and by the way that is what we have in Washington, DC), then there are some jobs that have to go away. I will say as president of the United States, 256,000 baby boomers are going to retire out of the federal government in the next four or five years. I will not replace a single one,” said Fiorina.
The video clip above contains the interview; these specific remarks are at about the 9:40 mark.
One of Fiorina’s opponents in the election said he would also reduce the size of the federal workforce in the same manner. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said in a campaign speech over the summer that federal employees are paid “far more than their private sector counterparts” and that he would cut the size of the federal workforce by 10% via attrition.
The idea of reducing the federal workforce through attrition is not a new one. The proposal dates back at least five years to the days of the Deficit Commission. At that time, the Commission proposed a number of cuts that would impact federal workers, one of which was cutting the overall size of the federal workforce through attrition.
Similar proposals have continued to be floated ever since that time, particularly as they pertain to budgeting. See, for example:
