Feb. 4, 2025, 2:35 p.m.
The federal bureaucracy is a mystery to most voters. Those of us in Washington, D.C., know many federal workers personally across a large variety of agencies, but for a large swath of the country, the only federal employees they know might be their local mail carrier.
Many voters are also unaware of the agencies that comprise the bureaucracy, what they do, or how large it all actually is. To them, the bureaucracy is this fuzzy, huge machine in Washington uses a ton of tax dollars to do who-knows-what.
That lack of understanding in part leads to the belief that there is a corrupt “deep state” operating nefariously within the bureaucracy that is out to harm the country, largely by maintaining the status quo—or more specifically, to thwart President Trump’s agenda.
In late 2020, at the height of conspiracy theories regarding the outcome of the 2020 election, 39 percent of Americans agreed that a “deep state” was working to undermine Trump—obviously driven by Republicans, but a substantial chunk of the country. These beliefs almost certainly didn’t decrease over the last four years, as Trump faced prosecutions and court battles that his followers view as unfair attempts to bring him down.
The desire to shrink or reform the federal bureaucracy is even more widespread—a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll shows that 61 percent of Americans approve of downsizing the federal government. An April 2024 Pew Research survey shows that 56 percent, including three-quarters of Republicans, believe the government is “almost always wasteful and inefficient.”
But few in the media or government talk about who and what actually makes up the federal bureaucracy. Helpfully, Pew Research Center put out a summary for us. Of the approximately 3 million federal employees, about 600,000 are U.S. Postal Service employees—the largest chunk—leaving 2.4 million employed elsewhere.
The next largest agency by number of employees is not the U.S. Agency for International Development, or the FBI, or any other agency recently targeted by Elon Musk and DOGE—it is the Department of Veterans Affairs, with around 487,000 employees. The next largest agencies are the Homeland Security Department, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defense Department. The Justice Department, which houses the FBI, is less than one-fourth the size of the VA, at about 117,000.
USAID has about 10,000 employees. It spent about $44 billion in fiscal 2024—approximately 0.6 percent of the $6.9 trillion spent by the federal government in 2024. The Education Department, which is now slated to be dismantled, is even smaller as measured by head count, but absorbs $238 billion, or about 3 percent of the federal budget.
Again, no one wants any federal dollars wasted, but when Trump and Musk say they want to shrink the federal bureaucracy and remake it, saving as much money as possible, one wonders at the math behind their choice of initial targets.
Politically, though, they have chosen wisely.
Going after the largest agencies that take care of our veterans, secure the nation, and comprise the military would be terrible politics. Shutting down the VA in the way Musk and his staff have shut down USAID would be an utter catastrophe for millions of veterans and their families. Homeland Security houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is busy deporting immigrants in the country illegally to align with Trump’s campaign promises. And depleting the military is almost always a political loser.
Also, it’s smart because most people actually like many of the individual agencies—particularly the National Park Service and the postal service. Views of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security are more favorable than unfavorable. The only major agency that gets more unfavorable than favorable views is the IRS. The departments of Education and Justice are tied on favorability, making them better targets than the larger agencies.
Meanwhile, Trump and Musk can make examples of USAID and Education by villainizing their purposes. USAID funds foreign-assistance programs, which is seen as the opposite of putting America first. The Education Department is viewed as an agent of federal government overreach, taking decisions about schooling out of states’ and parents’ hands. They are casting the employees who work there as soulless bureaucrats at best and evildoers out to ruin the nation at worst.
To those of us in D.C. who know the agencies and the people who work in them, these “deep state” suspicions seem insane. Sure, there is waste in spending and probably a few bad eggs, but the vast majority of these employees are trying to do good things in their careers and for the country. A lot of them—especially at the more technical agencies—could probably make more money in the private sector.
They may soon have that chance.
Contributing editor Natalie Jackson is a vice president at GQR Research.
