Trump Freezes Federal Workforce Hiring; Signs 2 Other Executive Orders
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- President Donald Trump signed three executive orders Monday morning, his first full weekday as President of the United States.
CBS News reports one withdraws the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), another reinstates the Mexico City Policy dealing with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and abortion access, and a third freezes federal workforce hiring.
TPP was a trade deal that would have aligned the U.S. and 11 nations in the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Canada and Mexico that would have eliminated tariffs and streamlined regulations.
"Everyone knows what that means, right? We've been talking about this for a long time," Trump said while signing the order withdrawing the U.S. from the TPP. "Great thing for the American worker, what we just did."
Trump did say that the military was exempted from the hiring freeze.
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) released the following statement:
"After barely 24 hours in office, Mr. Trump has chosen to politicize hiring of our federal civil servants by freezing the ability to bring on the best and brightest to work on behalf of the American people. As a business person, the president should understand that such a freeze is inefficient, costly and counterproductive: we cannot attract and maintain highly qualified personnel with such draconian steps that cut off the pipeline of fresh and experienced talent. Mr. Trump and some of his Republican allies may want government to fail, but this move will not save the taxpayers money and it isn't the way America should be treating its people.
"Time after time our public servants, mostly middle class and struggling to get by like so many other Americans, have been asked to do more with less resources. They have repeatedly been asked to carry extraordinary burdens, including program cuts and pay freezes, while contributing over $180 billion (and counting) to deficit reduction – far more than their share. Federal workers are patriotic and dedicated public servants in every community across the Nation who simply want to do their jobs on behalf of the American people. They shouldn't suffer because of partisan gamesmanship."
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen issued the following statement:
"President Trump's decision to enact an arbitrary hiring freeze on federal agencies is short-sighted and may ultimately cost taxpayers more as that work is shifted to federal contractors. Rather than take the time to understand agency budgets and make informed decisions, the President has decided to forbid agencies from bringing new talent into the civilian workforce. This will jeopardize critical missions like securing our borders, conducting oversight of federal programs, providing Social Security benefits, and monitoring the safety of our food supply. The size of each federal agency's workforce should rise or fall based on the priority of their missions, not an arbitrary freeze. Unfortunately, this knee-jerk decision involved as much thought as one of the President's many tweets."
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