The extensive layoffs of federal health workers that began on Tuesday will greatly curtail the scope and influence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the world’s premier public health agency, an outcome long sought by conservatives critical of its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The reorganization of the …
Years before President Trump returned to the White House, his budget chief, Russell T. Vought, began mapping out a plan to shrink the federal government. In Mr. Vought’s design, spending would be slashed by about $9 trillion over the next decade. Entire federal programs — from housing vouchers to student …
President Trump announced Friday that the Education Department would no longer manage the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio or supervise “special needs” programs in a major shake-up of an agency he has sought to eliminate. Student loans will move under the Small Business Administration, while special education services, along …
Elon Musk declared last month that the federal government was engaged in “utterly insane” activity, claiming without evidence that it had distributed $100 billion to people without Social Security numbers. Two days after Mr. Musk’s comments, one of his key lieutenants, Steve Davis, began pressing the Social Security Administration for …
On March 4, a Trump appointee at the Department of Veterans Affairs circulated a memo to senior leadership. The agency, it said, would “move out aggressively” to improve efficiency, with an “initial objective” of cutting the work force to 2019 levels. The next morning, someone posted a copy of this …
Follow live updates on the Trump administration here. When Eleanor H., 66, called the Social Security Administration last month seeking details about her retirement benefits, she didn’t expect to comfort the representative who answered. The woman started sobbing. “I asked her what was wrong, and she said she and her …
During President Trump’s first week back in the White House, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency identified an early focus of the cost-cutting operation: canceling leases for federal buildings that were considered underused. Mr. Musk’s team has since claimed credit for terminating leases for hundreds of properties across the country, …
At the headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, faint shadows above the entrance are all that remain of the letters that once spelled the agency’s name. In the Trump administration’s broad dismantling of the federal government, the consumer bureau was one of the first agencies to fall, its offices …
A contracting firm called Leidos took in more than $16 billion in revenue last year, most of it through contracts with federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs. So when the Trump administration’s budget cutters took aim at the V.A. last month, it seemed like bad news not just …
Questions linger over what this year’s layoffs and ranger protests at the National Park Service will mean for travelers, who made a record 331 million visits to park properties last year. Adding to the confusion is the federal court ruling on Thursday that the firings were done unlawfully and agencies …