Congressman reveals secret weapon in defense bill: bureaucracy bunker buster

Rep. Glenn Grothman says the National Defense Authorization Act passed Wednesday by the House contains a little-noticed weapon to cut federal spending and bureaucracy. 

The Wisconsin Republican told Just The News the bill now heading to the Senate cuts up to 19% of civilian jobs inside the War Department, saving an estimated $30 billion.

"It appears as though the Department of Defense is going to step up and, like some of the other departments, begin to lay off some employees who are really not necessary in today's highly technical world," Grothman said.

The House passed the nearly 3,100-page bill earlier Wednesday in a bipartisan 312-112 vote, and the legislation will now go to the Senate for approval before going to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature.

Grothman said that one thing Congress and the American people have learned in Trump's first year back in the Oval Office is how many Defense Department employees are civilians. The congressman said there were 760,000 civilian employees.

"I believe right now, we've reduced that number by 18 or 19%. I was able to talk to some of the people in the Pentagon," Grothman said on the "Just The News, No Noise" TV show. "Their goal is to reduce that figure further ... I think one of the things that DOGE exposed is there are a lot of federal employees who maybe aren't working that hard. 

"I think we made a big step in the right direction in Donald Trump's first year, as far as reducing non-uniform personnel, and I think we have commitments in the second year, there's going to be a further reduction, which we have to have," he added.

Grothman said that he believes the Pentagon will continue firing nonessential civilian employees, stating that terminating even 30,000 employees would save Americans approximately $30 billion per year.

"I want to remind your listeners, we're borrowing 26% of our budget," Grothman said. "We cannot keep going this way."

Another major takeaway of the legislation is a section that requires the War Department to turn over “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command.”

The mammoth $900 billion bill also calls for “declassification” and “transparency” related to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, by requiring the Trump Administration’s spy agencies to release their intelligence related to the Wuhan lab that the coronavirus is suspected of being released from in 2019.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.