Trump seeking overhaul, merger of federal agencies

WASHINGTON — Taking aim at the sprawling federal bureaucracy, President Donald Trump’s administration released a detailed proposal Thursday to reorganize a number of federal agencies and merge the Education and Labor departments. The latest in a long string of attempts to rein in the government, the plan met with instant skepticism and faced long odds in Congress.

Trump teed up his budget director to present highlights of the plan with an acknowledgement that the topic can make eyes glaze over: “Would the media like to hear Mick Mulvaney’s report, or would you find it extraordinarily boring and therefore not fit for camera?” Trump teased to reporters at a Cabinet meeting.

Undeterred, Mulvaney jumped right in, styling the document as a “drain the swamp” plan meant to control Washington’s bureaucracy on a grand scale and saying past presidents’ efforts had failed for lack of follow-through.

Mulvaney said the plan would modernize the federal government through consolidations and reorganizations not seen since the days of President Franklin Roosevelt. “We’re almost 20 percent into the 21st century but we’re still dealing with a government that is from the early 20th century,” Mulvaney said.

The budget chief offered several examples underscoring the byzantine nature of federal regulations.

Mulvaney told the president that a salmon swimming in the ocean is regulated by the Commerce Department, but once it swims upriver it’s overseen by the Interior Department. And if it uses a fish ladder, that’s governed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “This is stupid, this makes no sense,” Mulvaney said.

Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, said various reorganization plans have been hashed and rehashed for decades but have ultimately failed because of stubborn resistance in Congress.

“You’re not just asking members of Congress to reorganize agencies, you’re asking them to reorganize the appropriations process and give up their subcommittee positions,” Light said. “There’s not a single member of Congress ready to give up those authorities.”

Among the specific proposals outlined is a plan to merge the departments of Education and Labor into a single Department of Education and the Workforce, or DEW. The combined agency would oversee programs for students and workers, ranging from education and developing skills to workplace protections and retirement security.

It would also create a single food safety agency under the Agriculture Department and move the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, from the USDA to Health and Human Services, which would be renamed the Department of Health and Public Welfare and be refocused more broadly on public assistance programs.

OMB did not offer a specific timeline for which it would seek the various changes but said it would work with Congress.