We need to have a talk about making the federal bureaucracy work better

One of the more interesting things about spending time in Washington is that things happen here that really don’t happen anywhere else.  

On any given day, for example, you might bump into a House member in the airport, or see the featured guest on last week’s Sunday talk shows out at lunch. It really is something that doesn’t happen much, say, in Boston or Charlotte ... or anywhere else, for that matter. 

I had one of those experiences a few weeks back, when I was out for dinner with a group that included a bunch of DC recognizables. The folks included a sitting Democrat senator, a few other high-level pols, and a leading NGO leader. Both parties. A good cross-section of the town.

Because this is Washington, of course, at some point during the conversation, we got onto the topic of the current presidential campaign. Recent news reports had mentioned two of the attendees on a list of potential Trump or Harris Cabinet secretaries, so the chatter turned to topics such as transition politics, Senate confirmation, and, ultimately, running a federal agency.

I have run a federal agency. In fact, I have run three:  the Office of Management and Budget, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Executive Office of the President. I shared with my tablemates my view that running one isn’t anything like what most people probably think. One of the biggest challenges that I suppose few people acknowledge — and indeed, it was news to my tablemates — was actually getting the agency to do what you want, or more accurately what the president wants. The analogy of turning around an aircraft carrier came up more than once.

But, of course, since this is Washington, several folks had insights on how to fix that. Most suggestions turned on the point of “bringing in the right people.” And that is where dinner got really interesting. 

I had roughly 1,700 people working for me at the CFPB. I think it is fair to say that most of them weren’t big fans of Donald Trump. To give some insight into the environment, one poor soul followed me into the men’s room on the first day, waited for me at the sink, and then whispered, “Don’t feel bad…there’s a few of us who are really glad you are here!” then ran away. After all, Elizabeth Warren created the place, and she and her minions had staffed it up from scratch. So I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say it wasn’t exactly the Heritage Foundation. And, to their credit, my dinner-mates acknowledged that.

So, I asked all of them, Democrat and Republican, how many of those 1,700 do you think you should be able to hire and fire in order to help you "turn around the aircraft carrier?”

The discussion that followed was exactly what you would want from a Washington populated by experienced, reasonable, rational adults. Several raised issues of institutional memory. Others the importance of fresh blood and new perspectives. And just about everybody acknowledged that “elections have consequences,” and the importance of having the government reflect the will of the voting public. One particularly astute thinker even commented on the link between the growth of populism, in both parties, and the feeling of disconnect between people and government institutions when the will of the voters seems to go unheeded.

So, after 10-15 minutes of that sort of analysis, the group came to the consensus that the proper number that a new administration should be able to fire, and then fill with its own people, was roughly 15 to 20 percent. At the CFPB, that would mean roughly 250 to 350 people.

I was able to hire and fire exactly eight people. No, that is not a typo.

You hear a lot in the press these days about Project 2025, or what Russ Vought started at OMB with the “Schedule F” project. Putting aside the media spin, that difference in numbers, between eight and 250, is what such programs are all about. 

We need to have a conversation in this country about the federal bureaucracy — about what it does right and what it can do better, about how it works and what it works against. 

But apparently, if any idea is tied in any way to Donald Trump, it is immediately demonized by half the country, two-thirds of this town, four-fifths of the media, and 90 percent of the academic class. 

And, sadly, even by many of the people at my dinner.

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.