09/02/2025
Trump is Firing Government Employees, but He Learned from the Master: Bill Clinton and the Birth of the Deep State
As President Donald Trump announces plans to restructure the federal government and remove entrenched left-wing activist bureaucrats, the Left has reacted with outrage. Many claimed that such firings are an unprecedented attack on the civil service. However, history tells a different story. The blueprint for mass firings in the federal government was not drafted by Trump—it was authored by President Bill Clinton.
The Creation of Bill Clinton's Deep State
For the record, President Bill Clinton took drastic action upon entering office, firing all federal appointees and those reporting directly to them, reaching three levels deep into the management hierarchy. This included upper-level, middle-level, and lower-level managers. Such sweeping dismissals were unprecedented in modern history.
The stated reason for these actions was to reform the government and make it more efficient. Under the guise of the 1993 "Reinventing Government Initiative," Clinton oversaw the termination of 377,000 federal employees. This initiative, led by then-Vice President Al Gore, was marketed as an effort to cut bureaucratic bloat. Clinton publicized that his administration reduced the government payroll from 2.15 million employees to 1.79 million by the end of his term (U.S. Office of Personnel Management). However, while they claimed to be trimming the size of the government, it in reality expanded it dramatically.
Rather than actually reducing the government’s reach, Clinton’s actions ultimately tripled its size by shifting millions of jobs to government contractors. Over time, this maneuver allowed the Executive Branch to obscure the actual expansion of government, increasing bureaucracy for the last several decades. Since then, the federal workforce has grown from 2.15 million employees (with 4.2 million contractors) to a staggering 9.1 million when including both regular employees and contractors (Project On Government Oversight). This 30-year surge in contractors began with Clinton’s deep cuts, only to be followed by the replacement of these positions by liberal activist managers—resulting in an entrenched bureaucracy dominated by liberal activist bureaucrats.
This restructuring was the foundation for what has become the “deep state”—an unelected bureaucratic class that exercises significant influence over government operations, often in opposition to elected leaders who challenge the status quo. The same entity that Trump is now attempting to confront was a product of Clinton’s drastic reshaping of the federal workforce.
Setting the Precedent for Trump’s Actions
The Democrats are framing Trump's efforts to remove government employees as radical and dangerous. Yet, Clinton, a Democrat, set the precedent for such dismissals. The key difference is that while Clinton’s actions were aimed at consolidating power within a left-leaning bureaucracy, Trump’s efforts have been directed at reducing that bureaucracy’s grip on governance and returning government to the people.
Trump’s battle against the entrenched federal workforce is not an attack on democracy—it is an attempt to undo a system that was carefully crafted over decades to resist conservative leadership. The idea that federal employees should be immune from accountability is a modern invention, and Clinton himself showed that mass firings could be justified in the name of reform.
As the debate over federal employment rages on, it is important to remember who first wielded the axe. Trump may be making headlines for firing government employees, but he is merely following in the footsteps of the master—Bill Clinton.
