Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday laid out his ideas to shut down the FBI and fire more than 1 million federal workers, lining up with increasingly sweeping conservative proposals targeting the federal government and particularly law enforcement.
Candidates trying to beat former President Donald Trump have responded to growing anger among GOP primary voters about the indictments against Trump as well as federal investigations and policies seen as unfairly targeting conservatives.
Ramaswamy’s proposals are among the broadest in the field. Speaking at the America First Policy Institute in Washington, he said he would try to reduce the federal employee headcount by half in his first year in office and by 75% during his first term if he makes it to the White House.
He wants to shut down five federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Education. He said he would also eliminate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Food and Nutrition Service.
Ramaswamy is not the only Republican candidate to suggest slashing the federal workforce. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Education.
And there’s a larger effort to dismantle the federal government that is being fueled by conservative organizations along with former Trump administration officials. They have been working on drafting a plan for when Trump returns to the White House to oust federal employees and replace them with like-minded officials.
How about the military? We are never going to get into a fight with another nuclear power (and if we do - what good is a military if everyone in the world is dead?), so we should just keep enough military to launch nukes, protect against natural disasters, and defeat any country that doesn’t have nukes.
You make a very good point; and I say this while being very pro military, if you read through the stupidity of my comment history.
Can you elaborate on the role of the military in protecting against natural disasters? It’s not clear to me how this is already part of their function.
That was a late edit. I was referring to things like the army corp of engineers and the navy hospital ships, more reactionary. Though it would be cool if the military would be proactive. Remember’s Trumps question about nuking hurricanes Or, maybe just stay reactionary.