For all the media attention lavished on the Trump administration’s more theatrical moments — the Lake America fanfare, Jared Kushner’s international travel, the ballroom construction stories — the most consequential development of the past months has slipped by with little notice. According to a piece by Monica Showalter at American Thinker, the president has accomplished what many predecessors only promised: a meaningful reduction in the size of the federal government.
Showalter points to a chart produced by economist Mark J. Perry that tracks the number of federal bureaucrats, and the trend line is unmistakable. Fewer bureaucrats means less oppression, she argues, and fewer bloated salaries means less tax burden on Americans. It also means fewer campaign contributions flowing to Democratic causes, which have historically benefited from a large and growing government workforce.
Private sector gains, public sector losses
The news may not have dominated headlines, but the data is starting to show up in unexpected places. This week’s jobs report came in better than expected — and crucially, private sector jobs accounted for the overwhelming majority of the new hiring. That marks a sharp departure from the Biden era, when government payrolls often led growth.
Showalter sees a direct connection between the shrinking bureaucracy and the private sector’s resurgence. When government expands, it tends to crowd out productive enterprise; when it contracts, the private sector has room to breathe and hire. The inverse relationship is something economists have noted for years, but it is only now being tested at scale.
An underreported achievement
How many presidents have stood before the American people and promised to cut the size of government, only to leave Washington with a larger apparatus than they inherited? Showalter asks this pointed question, and the answer is clear: very few have delivered. That makes the current reduction a rare and genuine accomplishment — one that, in her view, is not being covered or celebrated by the press as it should be.
Instead, the media cycle has been consumed by distractions. But the real story, tucked away in spreadsheets and unemployment statistics, is the steady retreat of the federal leviathan. For those who have long argued that a smaller government leads to a larger private sector, the recent jobs report offers fresh evidence that the theory is playing out in practice.
The chart Perry created — shared by Showalter — documents the decline. While the details are still emerging, the implications are significant. Less government bloat means lower taxes, fewer regulations, and a more dynamic economy. It also means less institutional power for the Democratic Party, which has relied on a broad federal workforce as a base of support.
Whether this trend continues remains to be seen, but for now, it stands as one of the defining — and most underreported — achievements of the Trump administration.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/trump-cut-the-bureaucrats/