Fact Check: Clinton initiative cut over 377K federal jobs in the 1990s. It's not comparable to Trump's effort
By: President Clinton Announcing (Yahoo News)
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Claim:
During his time in office, U.S. President Bill Clinton oversaw the termination of 377,000 federal employees.
Rating:
Rating: True
Context:
According to testimony from Elaine Karmarck, the director of Clinton's initiative, it eliminated 426,200 federal roles between January 1993 and September 2000.
Looking back on the 1990s, it's strange to imagine a time when a presidential campaign was won on a promise to balance the federal budget. Bill Clinton did it, too — the U.S. federal budget had a surplus between 1998 and 2001, the only time there's been a surplus since 1970. (The government's debt is $36.22 trillion at the time of writing).
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In January and February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump began giving Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) increasing control over government services in an effort to eliminate federal government programs and dramatically slash spending.
Some media outlets claimed Trump and Musk's methodology was unprecedented. In response, socialmediapostsappeared pointing back to a Clinton-era initiative that "oversaw the termination of 377,000 federal employees," as evidence that Trump and Musk had simply "learned from the master."
It's true that during his presidency, Clinton reduced the federal government's workforce by more than 377,000 employees as part of an initiative called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (initially called the National Performance Review, or NPR). However, there's a key difference between how Clinton's NPR cut jobs and what Trump and Musk are trying.
In March 1993, just two months into his presidency, Clinton announced the creation of the National Performance Review, led by his Vice President, Al Gore. Its goal, according to Clinton's announcement, was "to make the entire Federal Government both less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment."
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The review lasted six months, and made 384 recommendations to improve the federal bureaucracy. The implementation of those policies took a lot longer, and some required legislation to be passed through Congress. For instance, in 1994, Clinton signed a bill that offered federal workers buyouts of up to $25,000 in an effort to reduce the workforce by 272,000 employees. According to an April 1995 statement from Clinton, the buyouts were largely offered to management positions in an effort to "reduce the layers of bureaucracy and micromanagement that were tying Government in knots." That statement said that about 70 of the buyouts in non-Department of Defense agencies went to managers and other individuals "at higher grade levels."
The initiative continued to make recommendations for government reform. According to a 1999 article on an archived version of NPR's website, it reduced the federal workforce by 351,000 between 1993 and 1998. An archived FAQ page from 2000 said 377,000 jobs were cut between 1993 and 1999. In a 2013 appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, former National Performance Review leader Elaine Karmarck said the agency cut 426,200 jobs by September 2000.
But the buyouts offered by Clinton's NPR and Trump and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency are not the same. Clinton's buyout plan had overwhelming bipartisan support from Congress, and the law was signed after a review period. Meanwhile, Trump and Musk offered the buyouts just one week into Trump's term, with no review process.
Federal employee labor unions have sued, questioning the legality of the buyout, and a federal judge has temporarily blocked the offer in order to review the lawsuit.
Sources:
Brief History of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/whoweare/history2.html. Accessed 7 Feb. 2025.
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Department, Paul Richter Paul Richter covered the State, et al. "Clinton Signs Federal Worker Buyout Plan." Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 1994, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-03-31-mn-40541-story.html.
"Fact Check: Did Clinton Set the Precedent for Mass Federal Worker Buyouts?" Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/7/fact-check-did-clinton-set-the-precedent-for-mass-federal-worker-buyouts. Accessed 7 Feb. 2025.
Fiscal Data Explains the National Debt. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions About the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/bkgrd/q-n-a.html. Accessed 7 Feb. 2025.
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Trump isn't even at 10% of Clinton's record............
What numbers are you using?
Depending on which report you want to use, Bubba let between 377,000 and 400,000 take early retirement with a Congressionally approved $25,000 incentive.
The math is pretty simple, taking the larger number and divide it by eight years gave Bubba and average of 50,000 workers annually incentivized into early retirement or career changes as a choice.
Mr. Trump and his wingman Musk have terminated over 62,000 Federals without a parachute in only the first 5 months of their special brand of chaos.
In just five months, job security at the federal level has become a joke, the country no longer honors past contracts,
past loan guarantees or past treaties with other countries.
But keep defending it.
Most people take on a GovCo job because of perceived job security.
Oh, and I will.
And unless you provide proof of your 377 to 400K took the $25K "buyout", your commentary on the subject is moot.
Agreed.
Whatever.
Well I take your own article and the links at face value. The "buyout" was the lesser of $25,000 or the severance pay available to the FTE depending on that particular FTE's eligibility. Tracking the reduction in FTEs from 1994 through 1999 is pretty easy if you do the research. The original funding was $10Million for 1994 & 1995 with an additional $4 million for 1995 through 2019. There was no ask for additional funding for HR 3345 during the Clinton years 1993 - 2001. Finding out how much was paid out is a different story.
H.R.3345 - 103rd Congress (1993-1994): Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
H.R. 3345
H.R. 3345, SUSPEND Act | Congressional Budget Office
T-GGD-96-124 Federal Downsizing: The Status of Agencies' Workforce Reduction Efforts
As far as anyone's commentary being debatable, you must be kidding, right?
It just goes to show how far today’s democrats have strayed from Clinton centrism. The hysteria they would greet those type of cuts today would be off the charts.
Clinton would be labeled a white supremacist by today's liberal standard.
They forgot to mention that Reinventing Government was focused on reforming procurement. If these revisionists are going to nuance the hell out of history, they should go all the way.
The Clinton administration shrunk the size of the Federal workforce with a sledge hammer approach. The Clinton administration used non-targeted buyouts, attrition, and RIFs to achieve the large number of job cuts. There wasn't any sort of review of job functions; it was strictly a numbers game subject to a political process.
The DOGE effort has, indeed, been more granular and has required some justification of need for Federal positions. As we've seen, some fired workers have been called back because they were needed. That certainly never happened during Clinton's pogrom.
It's not about actually that wasteful roles are being cut. It's about WHO is making the recommendations and decisions.
The democrats don't have a leg to stand on but will continue to whine and cry.
So now conservatives love Bill Clinton? I didn't see that one coming.
They will do anything to justify their pig with lipstick.
[✘]
removed for context
the difference, of course, is the method.
bill clinton got into office, said that he was going to cut the workforce, congress approved it, and then he cut the workforce.
trump got into office, had a person not even officially recognized as a member of the government start hacking away at jobs.
i know that the magabots will not see the difference, but anyone with a partially functioning brain should.
Exactly.
Musk is an authorized employee of the government for 130 days, which ends today.[✘]