POGO director warns Oversight Committee Democrats of 'generational damage' to federal civil service

Faith Williams, director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), told members of the Oversight Committee Democrats that recent actions by the Trump administration have inflicted "generational damage" on the federal civil service and weakened public safeguards.

"The result is generational damage to our merit based civil service, a failure of government services, a flourishing culture of corruption and abuse of power, and a people whose faith in their government is nearing all time lows," Williams said in testimony.

Williams described an unconventional White House entity she called "Doge," which she said "acted as an agency when it was handy to assume authority and acted as a White House office when it was handy to avoid accountability." She said the effort, which she tied to billionaire Elon Musk in her testimony, "took a chainsaw to government" and failed to achieve its stated savings goal of $2,000,000,000,000.

Williams cited workforce and service impacts as evidence of the damage. She said an estimated 317,000 federal employees have left or been forced out since the administration began, a reduction the Cato Institute described as "the largest peacetime workforce cut on record." She pointed to operational effects including Social Security callback wait times that peaked at about 2.5 hours and a Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general report of roughly a 50% increase in severe occupational staffing shortages. She also noted warnings from tax watchdogs that IRS staffing cuts may impair service during the tax season.

The witness alleged attacks on oversight institutions and protections for whistleblowers. "The administration has also attacked or undermined oversight bodies, whistleblowers, and watchdogs," she said, naming inspectors general, the Office of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Office of Government Ethics, internal Department of Homeland Security watchdogs and the Government Accountability Office.

Williams recounted allegations of misconduct she said are emblematic of broader risks: a POGO finding that a Doge staffer signed a secret agreement to share sensitive Social Security data with an unidentified political advocacy group, and an allegation that a White House official was recorded accepting $50,000 from FBI agents posing as business executives seeking government contracts — an allegation the official denies. She also said the Department of Justice division focused on public corruption has been weakened and that some contracts have gone to presidential supporters.

Pointing to broader public sentiment, Williams quoted Pew Research Center polling that roughly 17% of Americans in December said they trust the government to do what is right always or most of the time. She said immigrants, communities of color, women, LGBTQ people and those reliant on the social safety net have been especially harmed by the changes.

To address those harms, Williams outlined a set of remedial aims: restore the merit-based civil service, strengthen whistleblower protections and inspectors general, combat corruption and bolster congressional oversight. She told lawmakers that POGO has several specific proposals and offered to share detailed plans during and after the hearing.

"POGO is ready to work with each of you, with any member of Congress regardless of party, to repair what we can and create what we need to build a government that we, the people, deserve," Williams said in closing.

The testimony did not include formal votes or committee action; Williams offered POGO's proposals for congressional consideration and said she is available to provide more detail to members and staff.