Ramaswamy 2024
2023-09-14 06:18:16 UTC
Ramaswamy previewed his effort to shut down federal agencies ahead of a
speech at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank stacked with
former Trump administration officials.
Vivek Ramaswamy believes he has the perfect approach to undermine the
administrative state and the power wielded by career civil servants
trigger mass layoffs at federal agencies and defend his effort before the
Supreme Court.
Speaking with NBC News ahead of a major policy speech at the America First
Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, where he is scheduled
to explain how he would shrink the federal workforce, Ramaswamy, the
businessman-turned-candidate, detailed his plans, which include shutting
down a series of federal agencies and using "reduction in force"
regulations to trim the number of government workers.
"The reality is the adviser class from the D.C. swamp has convinced
Republican presidents from Reagan to Trump that they cant reorganize the
federal government or lay off large numbers of federal employees without
congressional permission or within federal regulations," he said. "And
were going to lay out tomorrow why that view is wrong."
The proposals Ramaswamy is putting forward would add up to some of the
most sweeping short-term changes ever to the federal government. And he
proposes to do large parts of it by executive action, without votes in
Congress which enacted the laws forming agencies Ramaswamy wants to end
reaching far beyond what past Republican administrations concluded were
the limits of their power.
Ramaswamy predicted the legal challenges he would face would center on
civil service protections for career officials. His understanding is that
they apply to individual employee firings, not mass layoffs.
"We are pointing out parts of the U.S. Code that expressly highlight that
they dont apply to mass layoffs," Ramaswamy said. "Yes, they apply to
individual employee firings, which is what they use to convince prior
presidents, including Trump, that they couldn't do it.
"But if you actually read the U.S. Code in full," Ramaswamy continued,
"they dont apply to mass layoffs they call reductions in force. And
large-scale reductions in force are absolutely the method that Ill be
using."
Notably, reduction in force regulations, as laid out by the U.S. Office of
Personnel Management, include a clear legal process by which career
officials can keep jobs in the event of layoffs. The process takes into
account factors including tenure, first and foremost, as well as previous
performance ratings. The Reagan administration used the regulations to
shrink government during the early years of Ronald Reagans presidency,
but the federal workforce ultimately grew under his watch.
Ramaswamy welcomes legal challenges to his effort and predicted the
Supreme Court would side with him in a 6-3 decision. Six of the justices
were appointed by GOP presidents.
"And that then codifies the changes were driving into judicial precedent
so that the president wont have his hands tied in the same way,"
Ramaswamy said. "Were going to get far more powerful than a game of
pingpong on this."
Ramaswamy has been campaigning for months on eliminating federal agencies,
with initial targets including the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture
Department. Ramaswamy has said he would effectively shut down or
reorganize each of those agencies at the start of his presidency.
Thousands of FBI employees, he said, would be reallocated to other
agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement
Administration.
He added that the agencies he is targeting are just "five of many more to
come."
Ramaswamy said his speech Wednesday will offer additional clarity about
what authority he believes a president has to make such changes without
congressional authorization, going beyond the briefly enacted Trump
administration executive order known as "Schedule F" an effort Donald
Trump and other Republican aspirants want to reinstitute at the start of a
new administration. The order would reclassify tens of thousands of
federal employees involved in policy decisions as at-will employees,
effectively canceling their employment protections and making it much
easier for a president to fire them.
Republicans have sought for years to shrink government and get past
bureaucrats they see as hostile to their initiatives, but right-wing
efforts to crack down on the civil service have intensified recently. That
has been especially true as Trump has painted federal law enforcement as
biased against him and as Republicans pilloried officials like Dr. Anthony
Fauci, formerly the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, over the role they played in responding to the Covid-
19 pandemic.
Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a
nonprofit organization dedicated to an effective federal government, said
this year that the Republican calls to fundamentally alter how the civil
service works are causing "quite a bit of anxiety in the federal workforce
and in the broader community of organizations that are focused on trying
to help our government work more effectively," adding that there is "a lot
of uncertainty" over what a potential GOP administration could do.
And it is Ramaswamy who has arguably gone the furthest in the field on
these issues.
"Everything else has been danced around with Schedule F exceptions, and
everyone is tiptoeing around the front door argument," he said. "Now, Im
actually just shutting down these agencies. This speech is going to lay
out a level of detail that I think will further take a sledgehammer to
that Overton window."
The "Overton window" is a term referring to the ideological boundaries of
a political debate.
Ramaswamy this year argued that existing Article II powers in the
Constitution allow a president to undertake such a reshaping of the
federal workforce without congressional buy-in. Acknowledging there is
"nuance and complexity" to his effort, he says now that it is more about
using laws on the books, like the Presidential Reorganization Act of 1977,
rather than making a strictly constitutional argument.
Some rivals, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have ripped Ramaswamy's ideas. After the first
GOP presidential primary debate last month, Pence's campaign sent a
release to reporters saying Ramaswamy's call to shutter the FBI amounted
to an embrace of "the Radical Lefts pro-crime, anti-cop Defund the
Police agenda.
On Monday, Christie called Ramaswamy's idea to eliminate the FBI "one of
the stupidest ideas Ive ever heard," citing anti-terrorism efforts the
bureau has undertaken in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.
"Dont throw that out for a sound bite at a debate to make yourself sound
like youre really smart and aggressive when youre really shallow and
only 38 years old," Christie said at an event in New Hampshire.
In response, Ramaswamy said the "Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley,
John Bolton, Karl Rove wing of the party, I think, has a very different
vision for the future of the Republican Party than the future that Im
going to be leaning into."
It is notable that Ramaswamy will deliver his speech before the America
First Policy Institute, a think tank stacked with former Trump
administration officials that some view as a government-in-waiting for a
second Trump administration.
But Ramaswamy, who has aligned himself closely with Trump, does not think
the group is in the tank for Trump. He said he wanted to speak before the
group because it has been "at the leading edge" of the effort to
reinstitute Schedule F and could offer a "neutral venue" in the fractious
2024 primaries.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/vivek-ramaswamy-wants-
trigger-mass-layoffs-federal-agencies-thinks-sco-rcna104676
speech at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank stacked with
former Trump administration officials.
Vivek Ramaswamy believes he has the perfect approach to undermine the
administrative state and the power wielded by career civil servants
trigger mass layoffs at federal agencies and defend his effort before the
Supreme Court.
Speaking with NBC News ahead of a major policy speech at the America First
Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, where he is scheduled
to explain how he would shrink the federal workforce, Ramaswamy, the
businessman-turned-candidate, detailed his plans, which include shutting
down a series of federal agencies and using "reduction in force"
regulations to trim the number of government workers.
"The reality is the adviser class from the D.C. swamp has convinced
Republican presidents from Reagan to Trump that they cant reorganize the
federal government or lay off large numbers of federal employees without
congressional permission or within federal regulations," he said. "And
were going to lay out tomorrow why that view is wrong."
The proposals Ramaswamy is putting forward would add up to some of the
most sweeping short-term changes ever to the federal government. And he
proposes to do large parts of it by executive action, without votes in
Congress which enacted the laws forming agencies Ramaswamy wants to end
reaching far beyond what past Republican administrations concluded were
the limits of their power.
Ramaswamy predicted the legal challenges he would face would center on
civil service protections for career officials. His understanding is that
they apply to individual employee firings, not mass layoffs.
"We are pointing out parts of the U.S. Code that expressly highlight that
they dont apply to mass layoffs," Ramaswamy said. "Yes, they apply to
individual employee firings, which is what they use to convince prior
presidents, including Trump, that they couldn't do it.
"But if you actually read the U.S. Code in full," Ramaswamy continued,
"they dont apply to mass layoffs they call reductions in force. And
large-scale reductions in force are absolutely the method that Ill be
using."
Notably, reduction in force regulations, as laid out by the U.S. Office of
Personnel Management, include a clear legal process by which career
officials can keep jobs in the event of layoffs. The process takes into
account factors including tenure, first and foremost, as well as previous
performance ratings. The Reagan administration used the regulations to
shrink government during the early years of Ronald Reagans presidency,
but the federal workforce ultimately grew under his watch.
Ramaswamy welcomes legal challenges to his effort and predicted the
Supreme Court would side with him in a 6-3 decision. Six of the justices
were appointed by GOP presidents.
"And that then codifies the changes were driving into judicial precedent
so that the president wont have his hands tied in the same way,"
Ramaswamy said. "Were going to get far more powerful than a game of
pingpong on this."
Ramaswamy has been campaigning for months on eliminating federal agencies,
with initial targets including the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture
Department. Ramaswamy has said he would effectively shut down or
reorganize each of those agencies at the start of his presidency.
Thousands of FBI employees, he said, would be reallocated to other
agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement
Administration.
He added that the agencies he is targeting are just "five of many more to
come."
Ramaswamy said his speech Wednesday will offer additional clarity about
what authority he believes a president has to make such changes without
congressional authorization, going beyond the briefly enacted Trump
administration executive order known as "Schedule F" an effort Donald
Trump and other Republican aspirants want to reinstitute at the start of a
new administration. The order would reclassify tens of thousands of
federal employees involved in policy decisions as at-will employees,
effectively canceling their employment protections and making it much
easier for a president to fire them.
Republicans have sought for years to shrink government and get past
bureaucrats they see as hostile to their initiatives, but right-wing
efforts to crack down on the civil service have intensified recently. That
has been especially true as Trump has painted federal law enforcement as
biased against him and as Republicans pilloried officials like Dr. Anthony
Fauci, formerly the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, over the role they played in responding to the Covid-
19 pandemic.
Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a
nonprofit organization dedicated to an effective federal government, said
this year that the Republican calls to fundamentally alter how the civil
service works are causing "quite a bit of anxiety in the federal workforce
and in the broader community of organizations that are focused on trying
to help our government work more effectively," adding that there is "a lot
of uncertainty" over what a potential GOP administration could do.
And it is Ramaswamy who has arguably gone the furthest in the field on
these issues.
"Everything else has been danced around with Schedule F exceptions, and
everyone is tiptoeing around the front door argument," he said. "Now, Im
actually just shutting down these agencies. This speech is going to lay
out a level of detail that I think will further take a sledgehammer to
that Overton window."
The "Overton window" is a term referring to the ideological boundaries of
a political debate.
Ramaswamy this year argued that existing Article II powers in the
Constitution allow a president to undertake such a reshaping of the
federal workforce without congressional buy-in. Acknowledging there is
"nuance and complexity" to his effort, he says now that it is more about
using laws on the books, like the Presidential Reorganization Act of 1977,
rather than making a strictly constitutional argument.
Some rivals, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have ripped Ramaswamy's ideas. After the first
GOP presidential primary debate last month, Pence's campaign sent a
release to reporters saying Ramaswamy's call to shutter the FBI amounted
to an embrace of "the Radical Lefts pro-crime, anti-cop Defund the
Police agenda.
On Monday, Christie called Ramaswamy's idea to eliminate the FBI "one of
the stupidest ideas Ive ever heard," citing anti-terrorism efforts the
bureau has undertaken in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.
"Dont throw that out for a sound bite at a debate to make yourself sound
like youre really smart and aggressive when youre really shallow and
only 38 years old," Christie said at an event in New Hampshire.
In response, Ramaswamy said the "Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley,
John Bolton, Karl Rove wing of the party, I think, has a very different
vision for the future of the Republican Party than the future that Im
going to be leaning into."
It is notable that Ramaswamy will deliver his speech before the America
First Policy Institute, a think tank stacked with former Trump
administration officials that some view as a government-in-waiting for a
second Trump administration.
But Ramaswamy, who has aligned himself closely with Trump, does not think
the group is in the tank for Trump. He said he wanted to speak before the
group because it has been "at the leading edge" of the effort to
reinstitute Schedule F and could offer a "neutral venue" in the fractious
2024 primaries.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/vivek-ramaswamy-wants-
trigger-mass-layoffs-federal-agencies-thinks-sco-rcna104676