Trump proposes government overhaul, merger of agencies

WASHINGTON — Taking aim at the sprawling federal bureaucracy, President Donald Trump’s administration released a 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 government, the plan met with instant skepticism and faces long odds in Congress.

Trump teed up his budget director to present plan highlights with an acknowledgement 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.

Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, said various reorganization plans in recent decades 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.

The new plan was met with skepticism among lawmakers. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said members of both parties had pushed back against Trump’s proposals “to drastically gut investments in education, health care and workers — and he should expect the same result for this latest attempt to make government work worse for the people it serves.”

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. 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 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.

Mulvaney did not offer a timeline for the changes but said his office would work with Congress.