Trump Signs Executive Orders to Speed Up Firing of ‘Poor Performing’ Federal Workers

President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday that will expedite the process of terminating “poor performing” federal government employees.

The new rules will “require all federal employees to devote at least 75 percent of their work hours for agency purposes, senior administration officials said. The administration estimates that these actions could save taxpayers at least $100 million a year, BuzzFeed reports.

“These executive orders make it easier for agencies to remove poor performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used,” Andrew Bremberg, the White House’s director of the domestic policy, told reporters.

Despite the move largely benefiting U.S. taxpayers, not everyone is excited about the move.

J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, says the new rules are against the interest of everyday Americans.

“Our government is built on a system of checks and balances to prevent any one person from having too much influence,” Cox said in a statement. “President Trump’s executive orders will undo all of that. This administration seems hellbent on replacing a civil service that works for all taxpayers with a political service that serves at its whim.”

In signing the three orders, President Trump is acting where Congress has failed. During his State of the Union address in January, President Trump called on lawmakers to pass a bill that would expedite the firing process.

A senior Trump administration official told Bloomberg that the new rules “achieve a similar aim.”