As part of his agenda, President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to drastically reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy.

However, one major policy proposal could help Trump remove federal employees without having to fire them. 

Executive order could cause "an exodus" of civil servants

At issue is an executive order from 2020 known as Schedule F, which reclassified tens of thousands of government workers who are involved in policy making roles as political appointees.

The executive order, which was quickly rescinded by President Joe Biden, sought to strip such individuals of civil service protection, meaning that they would serve at the president's pleasure.

Jacqueline Simon serves as policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, and she told The Hill that such a change would lead to mass resignations.

"I think there would probably be an exodus, because federal employees just want to do their jobs," Simon was quoted as telling the website.

"They want to do the job according to law and regulation," she insisted. "They do not want to be political appointees. They don’t want politics to interfere with any aspect of their job."

CNN correspondent: Schedule F causing "PTSD" among bureaucrats

The Hill pointed out that although federal agencies are headed by political appointees, most of the work which they do is carried out by permanent bureaucrats.

Under Schedule F, the number of people classified as political appointees would rise from the current number of roughly 4,000 to over 50,000.

Although Simon likened Schedule F with forcing civil servants to " join the cult," proponents contend that it is necessary to keep Trump's agenda from being sabotaged by ideologically motivated bureaucrats.

Fox News reported that CNN national correspondent René Marsh said that some federal employees are experiencing "PTSD" at the prospect of Schedule F being implemented.

Vivek Ramaswamy proposes other was to cut federal workforce

Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and Newsweek noted that he recently said the federal workforce could be further reduced by regulatory reform as well as eliminating work-from-home privileges.

"If you literally just mandated that they have to show up for work, Monday through Friday, a radical idea, a good number of them would quit that way," Ramaswamy told conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.

"If you have 50 percent fewer regulations, that creates a sort of industrial logic to say we don't need 50 percent of the people around anymore, either," Ramaswamy added.