That’s right folks. President Donald Trump is NOT the first U.S. president to be hard bent toward government reform.

In fact, reform initiatives to increase efficiency and lower costs was important for other presidents like Roosevelt, Taft, Reagan and Clinton who spent a good deal of their terms working to reform U.S. government. Let’s talk about what government reform looked like with Clinton and compare it to Trump’s current initiative.

LAST WEEK

Government reform has hit the U.S. State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that U.S. diplomacy has failed to operate efficiently and effectively as the department is “bloated, bureaucratic and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission.”

On Friday, State laid off about 1,300 employees. The department had previously issued Reduction in Force (RIF) notices requesting employees to report to the office with all department-issued devices and diplomatic passports.

Rubio had announced back in April that a reorganization plan for the department would be implemented in order to align with Trump’s ‘America First’ initiative.

“We are facing tremendous challenges across the globe. To deliver on President Trump’s America First foreign policy, we must make the State Department Great Again,” said Rubio. “The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.”

The reorganization plan in its’ entirety is projected to shrink the department’s domestic workforce by 15%. Following Friday’s events 1,100 civil servants and 250 foreign servants working in the U.S. have left.

In February the White House released the executive order for large-scale reductions, calling on all ‘Agency Heads’ to make necessary preparations to issue RIF notices. So far, thousands of federal employees across nearly 20 government agencies have received RIFs and are on paid leave.

Lower courts have challenged this executive order, but the Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of the Trump administration. This will allow for continual layoffs across other agencies like the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Department of Education.

Offering the only dissenting opinion was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, where she accused the other justices of a “demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.” She continued in her opinion, calling the “widespread cancellation” an active dismantling of the U.S. government that Congress had created.

Many have specifically vocalized their opposition to the State Department layoffs, including members of Congress, labor unions and former U.S. diplomats.

Senator Jeanna Shaheen of New Hampshire highlighted situations unraveling in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere to suggest that now is not the time for the U.S. to weaken its’ diplomatic hand.

“There are conflicts and humanitarian crises in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Haiti and Myanmar – to name a few.”

The union representing former and current U.S. diplomats, the American Foreign Service Association, also condemned recent layoffs by calling them an indication of American retreat from the global arena.

Antony Blinken, former Secretary of State under Biden, shared a heart-felt message on X directed at those recently laid off from State. “Thinking today of the men and women of the State Department – Foreign and Civil Services. Their dedication to serving the national interest and the American people is second to none.”

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

While Trump’s government cuts have aggressively stirred the pot, this wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. Surprise, surprise! Former president Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore also made a point to reform the government.

In the opening letter of the review, Al Gore wrote that it was Clinton’s vision to clean up a government of “useless bureaucracy and waste and freed from red tape and senseless rules.” The preface paints a picture of a newly effective, efficient and responsive government that “works better and costs less.”

At the time of this review, Clinton had already presented Congress with the largest deficit reduction package seen at that time “proving to the American people that their tax dollars will be treated with respect for the hard work that earned them.”

Before the preface concludes, it mentions personnel reductions as a result of the plans’ reinventions. The reductions in name “will bring the federal workforce below two million employees for the first time since 1967.” The promise is that this reduction would expand the workforce.

While this may not change how monumental Trump’s current government reform initiative is, it certainly adds context by shedding light on prior attempts at large-scale efforts… even from presidents across the aisle.

In a 2000 analysis of the Clinton and Gore reform, Donald F. Kettl wrote for Brookings Institute giving light to some issues that had arisen. Particularly with the downsizing of the federal workforce, Kettl questioned whether this reduction produced a “right-sized, right-skilled workforce” as Clinton intended.

Overall, Kettl reviewed that reinvention had been applied unevenly across the federal government. Some organizations like FEMA experienced dramatic shifts in their operation, while others like State saw minimal change.

Another example of uneven application existed in workforce reductions across various organizations. The Department of Defense, Energy and Housing and Urban Development had drastic minimizing of personnel but cabinet departments like State, Commerce and Justice had grown.

The commentary highlights a necessary tradeoff that is imperative to successful downsizing. If one successfully downsizes, are there efforts in place to sufficiently ‘right-size’ the government? “There was little advance planning of what skill mix the government needs for the future. As a result, there is no assurance that the downsizing produced a rightsized government, with the skill set the government needs for the future.”

It’s simply not enough to cut out unnecessary numbers. Once the slack (for lack of better word) is eliminated, it then becomes priority to build up the necessary pillars of the stronghold.

Don’t hammer me on the specifics but think of the process of “cutting” and muscle toning. Individuals don’t only work at getting rid of surplus fat and calorie intake, they work to maintain muscle mass and improve resistance training. This process is strategic and it’s not all about what you lose – it’s about what you maintain and improve.

Kettl continues in his review saying that the shortcomings of reinventing the government “are as instructive as its early successes.” Following Clinton’s reform initiative, Kettl suggests that the government was then ill-suited to fulfill both the law and Constitution. Of course, Kettl was issuing his commentary on the issue so take this at face value and determine a perspective for yourself.

Brookings Institute published an article in January expanding on the analysis of government reform and reduction, similar to Kettl’s.

“Effective government reform must align strategies with missions, whether through privatization, government by network, reinvented bureaucracies, or government by market to address modern challenges while maintaining public accountability.”

Again, we see this imperative idea that much of reform happens with how we rebuild and maintain the cornerstone of our structure rather than how much is merely gutted from the inside.

CONCLUSION

It’s no wonder that historical examples of similar government reform have gone unreported by mainstream news. How else would we easily criminalize the actions of our current administration?

Don’t misunderstand me. None of this is written to suggest that as the author I support or reject ongoing reform & reduction plans. However, I won’t shy away from stating that those who fail to remember and review history are often those who are doomed to repeat it. The amount of face saved is not worth attempting to conceal how things we’re concerned about may have happened before.

One thing we have been able to glean from Clinton’s efforts for government reform is that the buildup and reconstruction after the fact is arguably the most important piece of the puzzle. That leaves us with this question: Will the Trump administration put as much, if not more, effort toward reconstruction and right-sizing the government?