Politics

Donald Trump and Elon Musk aren’t the first to make deep cuts. Bill Clinton-era Reinventing Government saved billions

Published

5 hours ago

February 23, 2025

As part of Musk’s effort, the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal workers without warning. It offered government employees a “deferred resignation” program that wasn’t authorized by Congress and gutted agencies without similar legislative authorization, though sometimes judges intervened. The technology mogul and world’s richest person has pledged to save trillions of taxpayer dollars by cutting costs.

Those familiar with the Clinton-era Reinventing Government push say it holds lessons for both how to remake the federal bureaucracy and the comparatively meager savings that can be achieved from such an effort.

“We did it without a constitutional crisis,” said Elaine Kamarck, who ran Reinventing Government as a senior Gore adviser in the 1990s. “Unlike these people, we didn’t think there were vast trillions in efficiencies. … Their mandate is only to cut. Our was: Works better, costs less.”

Kamarck said the initiative grew to a 400-person staff recruited from existing workers within the federal agencies. They set about making the government more efficient and focused on customer service, introducing private sector-style metrics such as performance standards for workers.

The Reinventing Government team also pushed the workforce to embrace a brand new technology — the internet. Many governmental web sites and programs, including the electronic filing of income taxes, date back to the Reinventing Government initiative.

Gore appeared on the David Letterman late night television show and smashed a government ash tray with a hammer to symbolize his crusade to eliminate waste. The government ended up giving out “hammer awards” to employees who came up with ways to cut red tape and improve service, recalled Don Kettl, an emeritus professor of public policy at the University of Maryland.

“Liberating employees and seeing employees as a better part of the system was a big piece of it,” Kettl recalled. “One important difference is the Trump administration sees federal employees as the bad guys, and the Clinton administration saw federal employees as good guys.”

The Clinton administration also worked with Congress to authorize $25,000 buyouts for federal workers and ended up eliminating what Kamarck said were more than 400,000 federal positions between 1993 and 2000 through a combination of voluntary departures, attrition and a relatively small number of layoffs.

Kettl said the job cuts didn’t save money because the government had to turn around and hire contractors to perform the tasks of workers who left — something he worries will happen again if Musk and Trump continue to slash the federal workforce.

Chris Edwards, who edits DownsizingGovernment.org at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington, said buyouts symbolize the important difference between the Clinton effort, which he called “moderately successful,” and the current DOGE campaign — the involvement of Congress.

The Republicans who control Congress today have let Musk move ahead with his changes without them, even though the Constitution states that the legislative branch approves spending and federal law prohibits the president from cutting programs Congress has authorized without its permission. Clinton was the last president to successfully seek that permission, with Congress accepting $3.6 billion in cuts he proposed.

Trump and Musk have made only vague promises about submitting cuts to Congress. Without its involvement, any savings will be fleeting, Edwards said: “None of these changes DOGE wants to make will be permanent,” he said.

Few Republicans have suggested greater involvement by Congress.

“It requires speaking out. It requires saying, ‘That violates the law, that violates the authorities of the executive,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska.

Kamarck estimated the total savings of Reinventing Government at $146 billion — a considerable amount, but still only a tiny sliver of the federal budget. She contrasted the slow, deliberative and collaborative approach her team took with Musk’s breakneck pace, led by a team of young outsiders he has brought in to slash agencies and their workforce.

The reason Reinventing Government moved slowly, Kamarck said, was that it didn’t want to interfere with the myriad crucial roles of government while restructuring it. Musk seems to have few such concerns, she fears.

“The stakes in federal government failure are really, really high in a way they’re not in the private sector,” Kamarck said. “We really worried about screwing things up, and I don’t think these guys are worried enough about screwing things up, and it’ll be their undoing.”

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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Politics

St. Augustine business leader appointed to Beach District Commission

Published

36 minutes ago

February 23, 2025

May Greene

Lynda Kirker has experience in financial management at Flagler Hospital and other leadership positions in St. Johns County.

The governing board over one of Florida’s more modest ports has a new member thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Lynda Kirker was appointed by DeSantis this month as the latest member of the St. Augustine Port, Waterway and Beach District Board of Commissioners. The board has five members serving the nautical interests of St. Johns County along coastal areas.

The District is primarily charged with promoting the development of St. Johns County maritime interests among commercial and recreational activity in the area. Its original intent was to promote and protect nautical interests near the St. Augustine Inlet when it was founded in the 1930s. But it’s grown to involve marine projects, dune crossover development and other maritime projects.

“I’m excited and I’m flattered that the governor has that much faith and trust in me,” Kirker said in an interview with Jax Today. “and I hope that I can do a good job.”

In addition to maritime promotion, the District levies property taxes in coastal areas to support coastal projects and the board’s jurisdiction runs south to the Matanzas Inlet.

One of the more higher profile projects the board is connected to is the beach renourishment undertakings. That was a huge and expensive issue in St. Johns County in the past couple of years.

While the northern shoreline of St. Johns County was restored, another beach renourishment project was conducted south near St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach. About $30 million in federal, state and local funding paid for the beach renourishment running from about Anastasia State Park into St. Augustine Beach near A Street.

Kirker has plenty of public service and management experience. She is the former Chief Financial Officer for Flagler Hospital and is the treasure of the Flagler College Women of Vision Advisory Board and the St. Augustine Sister Cities Association.

Kirker got a bachelor’s degree from Stetson University in business and accounting.

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Politics

USDA scholarship for students at historically Black colleges suspended

Published

3 hours ago

February 23, 2025

May Greene

A federal scholarship aimed at boosting students from underserved and rural areas attending historically Black colleges and universities has been put on hold.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture suspended the 1890 Scholars Program, which provided recipients with full tuition and fees for students studying agriculture, food or natural resource sciences at one of 19 universities, known as the 1890 land grant institutions.

It’s not clear exactly when the program was suspended, but some members of Congress first issued statements criticizing the suspension of the program on Thursday.

“The 1890 Scholars Program has been suspended pending further review,” the Department of Agriculture said in a post on the program’s website.

The suspension coincides with a funding freeze President Donald Trump’s administration instituted. Administration officials had said the pause was necessary to review whether spending aligned with Trump’s executive orders on issues like climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

A spokesperson for the department said Saturday in an email to The Associated Press that “every scholar — over 300 — regardless of matriculation date, was retained to finish their studies and complete their work with the Department.” The spokesperson added that Secretary Brooke Rollins will review the scholarship program, its mission and its metrics to ensure taxpayer resources are used efficiently.

The funding freeze has been challenged in court, with a temporary hold on the executive action already in place.

The affected universities include Alabama A&M, Florida A&M, North Carolina A&T and Tuskegee University in Alabama, among others.

The scholarship program dates to 1992, but 1890 in the title refers to the Second Morrill Act of 1890, which established historically Black colleges and universities.

Eligibility rules include being a U.S. citizen with a GPA of 3.0 or better, along with acceptance to one of the 19 1890 land grant universities. Eligible students must also study agriculture or related fields and “demonstrate leadership and community service,” according to the department’s site.

In October, the department said it had set aside $19.2 million for the program. In fiscal year 2024, 94 students were awarded scholarships, the department said.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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Politics

Florida TaxWatch economic forecast shows upward trends, with some areas of concern

Published

3 hours ago

February 23, 2025

May Greene

Florida TaxWatch’s new analysis for economic growth in the Sunshine State in the next half decade shows steady increases. But there are areas of concern.

TaxWatch, primarily a government spending watchdog group, produces quarterly economic forecasts projecting economic development in the state along with analysis provided by the consulting firm Regional Economic Consulting Group (REC Group). And the third quarter forecast of 2024 that was published recently this month shows steady growth through 2030.

“Fueled by a strong global presence in tourism, trade, and real estate development, Florida’s economy has grown to nearly $1.5 trillion,” said Florida TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic Calabro. “Despite this impressive growth, Florida slipped from the fifteenth largest economy in the world to the sixteenth, which is why Florida TaxWatch continues to examine if Florida’s impressive economic growth is sustainable over the next several years.”

The economic gross domestic product (GDP) forecast stretches from 2024 through 2030 with several key indicators under consideration. The TaxWatch forecast in the next five years shows GDP growth dropping from 3.5% in 2024 to 3.2% in 2025. That rate remains about the same for most of the next five years, though the projection is for a drop to 3% in 2030.

“The difference between the growth rate of Florida’s GDP and the real GDP is becoming smaller. This suggests that the rate of inflation is expected to decrease in the coming years,” the forecast said.

The number of new jobs created in the state will definitely go up each year, according to the projection. But the pace of job growth could waffle. The study found there were 178,600 new jobs created in 2024, that figure will drop to about 121,900 in 2025. The forecast shows a steady decline in that figure falling to 77,900 in Florida in 2027. But that fall-off will see a turnaround in 2028 with 80,900 new jobs created and will escalate to 128,700 created in Florida in 2030.

In terms of the number of people who are in Florida, there will be an increase in population, too. The TaxWatch forecast projects the 2030 population will rise to about 24.8 million people, up by about 1.45 million people from the current population.

The one solid increase with no dispute, at least among the TaxWatch analysts, is the tourism industry will remain strong in Florida. One of the main keystones and economic drivers of Florida will continue to be visitors coming to the state for a break.

“Florida’s tourism is projected to increase steadily through 2028, and Florida’s tourism industry is projected to continue its strong growth through 2030, with more visitors expected each year. Tourism directly supports 2.1 million jobs and is responsible for $76.4 billion in employee wages. Due to the revenue tourism generates, every Florida household saves $1,910 a year on state and local taxes,” the TaxWatch forecast concluded.

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