Over time, the federal workforce (full and part time) has shrunk as a percentage of the total U.S. population, from 1.1% in FY 1967 to 0.6% in 2018. In absolute terms, the federal workforce is slightly smaller than it was 50 years ago, even though the U.S. population has increased by two-thirds during that time period.7 Not only are the number of federal employees small compared to the population, but they also don’t cost very much. Compensation for federal employees cost $291 billion in 2019, or 6.6% of that year’s total spending.8
President Trump, Elon Musk, and their band of DOGE budget-cutters celebrate daily, even hourly targets to cut U.S. spending on everything from foreign aid to FAA personnel.Trump himself has teased a balanced budget — an impossibility without historic cuts to America's most popular programs, such as Social Security.
Why it matters: Their proposed cuts are but drips of water in America's overflowing bucket of debt — $36 trillion and counting. In fact, most days, America racks up more interest on its debt — $3 billion per day! — than DOGE can find in savings. That leaky bucket is the reality of your nation's finances.
This column is our attempt to clinically outline the facts about deficits — and efforts to reduce or eliminate them.
The big picture: Trump and Musk are correct that America is drowning in deficits. Some of it flows from silly spending on stale or even stupid programs. Those make for terrific X dunking: Agencies with more software licenses than employees! A $324,671 USDA grant for "Increasing DEIA Programming for Integrated Pest Management"! A $3 million Education Department contract "to write a report that showed that prior reports were not utilized by schools"!
But trimming fat is harder than it looks: 37% of the contract terminations on an initial list on DOGE's "Wall of Receipts" (417 out of 1,125) weren't expected to save any money, usually because it had already been spent.
And the only way to truly reduce the deficit is to target the very programs Trump refuses to touch — defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. They account for 86% of the budget.
