Washington, D.C. - Senator Ron Johnson (WI) and Representative Mick Mulvaney (SC-5) today announced introduction of S. 1611 and H.R 3029, the Reducing the Size of the Federal Government Through Attrition Act. This legislation would reduce the federal workforce by 10% by 2015, with expected savings of $139 billion over the next ten years.

Johnson said:

“If we’re ever to have any hope of reining in the size, scope and cost of government, we need to look at the size of the federal workforce. This bill accomplishes that – not by laying off any workers, but through simple attrition. That’s a common sense approach, and a bipartisan one. It was a recommendation of President Obama’s own fiscal commission.  Unfortunately, the President went against this advice and now proposes to grow government by adding another 15,000 federal workers in his 2012 budget.”

Mulvaney said:

"The unfortunate reality is that while the private sector is hurting, the federal government has continued to grow.  In the past five years, the federal workforce has grown by nearly 15 percent, and the private sector workforce has shrunk by more than 6 percent.  We cannot continue to substitute job creation with government-funded employment.  This legislation -- a proposal supported by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission and selected by the American people as part of the YouCut program -- will boost private sector employment by slowing the explosive growth of the public sector.  Because as recent history has shown us, when government spends less, businesses spend more.  And it will take more spending from businesses, not the government, to put people back to work."

 The federal workforce has grown by nearly 15 percent – or close to 300,000 employees – in just the last 5 years. According to the Office of Personnel Management, 400,000 federal employees are currently eligible for retirement. This legislation would roll back much of the expansion of the federal bureaucracy, saving taxpayers billions. This reduction would be achieved solely through natural attrition, by retirement.  The bill would also promote saving taxpayer money through competition by ending unjustified service contracts and arbitrary insourcing.

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