President-elect Donald Trump has an ambitious agenda to reduce the size of the federal government, uproot the federal bureaucracy, and limit Washington’s intrusion into the daily lives of the average American citizen. Such goals have long been the aim of many a Republican executive, though few have managed to materially advance them. 

Trump himself struggled to restrict the government in his first term, encountering significant resistance from entrenched executive agencies and congressional Republicans alike. Indeed, newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Co-Chief Elon Musk on Thursday reshared a meme commenting on Republican apprehensions toward budget cuts.

The president-elect’s second term, however, may see him make more substantial inroads in cutting federal bloat than the first time around. Here’s how he and his allies aim to rein in or eliminate federal agencies.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

After the election, Trump officially announced that former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and X platform owner Elon Musk would lead DOGE, a new federal agency with the sole purpose of reducing the size of other government agencies and eliminating waste.

"Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies - Essential to the 'Save America' Movement,” Trump said. The Executive Branch department will work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to enact reforms and has an expiration date of July 4, 2026. Trump deemed a smaller government his gift to America for its 250th anniversary.

DOGE’s exact purview and authority remain somewhat unclear as of press time.

First Up: Severance packages

To limit resistance from federal employees facing the prospect of job loss, Musk has proposed granting federal employees generous severance packages to ease their transition out of public service. “We will reduce a lot of government headcount, but we're going to give very long severances. Like two years, or something like that,” Musk said in October. “Look, just go do something else is what we're going to say. And you'll get paid for two years. So, you've got a lot of time to go and figure out something else to do.”

“The point is not to be cruel or to have people not be able to pay their mortgage or anything,” he added. “We just have too many people in the government sector, and they could be more productive elsewhere.”

Firing “rogue bureaucrats”

They won’t be exclusively amicable partings, however. Trump has long expressed frustrations over the so-called “deep state,” contending that federal employees actively obstructed or slow-walked his agenda during his first term.

Trump’s plan to eliminate the federal bureaucracy includes the reinstatement of a 2020 Executive Order he issued that permits the president to fire “rogue bureaucrats” and to maintain a physical separation of the Offices of Inspector General from the departments they monitor.

He has vowed the mass firings of “corrupt actors” within federal departments. While the move would primarily serve to reduce the influence of bureaucrats, it would doubly serve to reduce federal headcount, and could prove decisive in making major staffing cuts.

Moving departments out of Washington, D.C.

Among the major proposals is moving the mountain of federal agencies out of the Washington, D.C., area to both undercut lobbyists and decentralize decision-making. The prospect of a mandatory relocation outside the Beltway could also prompt an exodus of federal staff rooted in the area.

Thus far, few specific plans to move agencies have been floated. Relocation of the FBI from its current headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover building, however, has long been a priority project, though the government selected a site in Greenbelt, Md., last year to build a new headquarters.

In March of 2023, Trump released an Agenda 47 policy video in which he indicated that up to 100,000 government positions could leave Washington.

Eliminating the Department of Education

During the campaign, Trump vowed to entirely eliminate the Department of Education, a longstanding goal of conservative politicians. His rationale for eliminating the department goes beyond merely reducing the size of government and comes as part of his plan to revitalize American education. "The long-term goal, but now it's a short-term goal, of breaking up the federal Department of Education and redistributing its functions to the states,” Trump said in March of last year.

One of the larger federal agencies, its outright elimination would potentially be one of the single most substantive reductions of the federal government in recent decades.

Old-fashioned spending cuts

House and Senate Republicans continue to campaign extensively on government budget cuts, with House conservatives especially highlighting the lower chamber’s “power of the purse” as a means of exercising control over federal agencies.

House Speaker Mike Johnson struggled to extract spending concessions in the current Congress in light of the narrow Republican majority and the Democratic party-controlled Senate. The new Republican majority in the upper chamber, however, opens the door for conventional legislative efforts to reach the president’s desk.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune this week announced that the upper chamber would work with the House “to deliver on President Trump’s priorities,” including “streamlining the bureaucratic machine.”