Maryland’s governor on life under DOGE

Ben Smith: There’s a lot of political pressure in Democratic Party, maybe not to lower the retirement age, but to lower the age of politicians. Do you think it’s time for some congressional leaders to move on?

Wes Moore: I think that the people in their districts have to decide that. But honestly, at what point do you know that it is time, right? So for example, I look at Steny Hoyer, and I believe Steny is 84, and I can’t keep up with him. Steny is a remarkable public servant, and it’s not just the institutional knowledge — frankly, it’s the energy that Steny brings to this work. I think he continues to add tremendous value to his district, and I think that’s why his district continues to re-elect him overwhelmingly. So it’s up to the individuals to decide when it is time, and then, I think, it’s up to voters to decide if that person is the best one to serve them.

One of the undercurrents in the politics of retirement is often a kind of resentment from private sector workers and voters about the traditional pensions and the younger retirement ages that often come with federal, state and local government jobs. How do you think about that?

I joined the army when I was 17 years old, and I was too young to sign the paperwork. My mother had to sign the paperwork for me. But after my teenage years, she signed whatever the army put in front of her. And there are people who I signed up with when I was 17 and 18 years old who would serve on active duty, who had done their time, and would do repeat deployments, and were, at 37 to 40 years old, then eligible for retirement. I also think about the service thing, that in many cases we’re asking people to leave their families, to risk their lives, to miss birthdays and holidays — basic things that many of us kind of take for granted. “Thank you for your service” shouldn’t just be a statement, but something that we believe in and reinforce.

Just to push on this point a little, there are a lot of people who are not serving in the military, but who have normal office jobs like me. And there’s a relationship in a lot of state capitals where the state workers’ unions elect representatives who sweeten their pensions, and that becomes a real fiscal burden that I’m sure you’re navigating all the time. Is that a problem, that essentially some of these groups have too much political power in state capitals and that that, in a way, distorts the system?

I come from the business world. And I do believe that in this moment, we have to think about what type of workforce is necessary and required.

So, for example, when I came on board there were over 10,000 vacancies within state government, and that meant a lot of basic functions just weren’t being performed. It’s the reason that we were dealing with things like people waiting 18 months for unemployment checks, and people calling 911 and waiting over an hour to get a response. It’s the reason that a little after my first day in office, we had to deal with something called Charlotte Hall, which is one of the largest veterans centers inside of Maryland, and which was not just in disrepair — what was being done to those veterans living in Charlotte Hall was abhorrent.

You had this atrophy of basic functions and services. So then, people say, “Well, if you know there’s over 10,000 vacancies, does that mean you bring on 10,000 working people?” The answer is no, because I’m not interested in rebuilding someone else’s government. I’m interested in having a government that actually works. So tell me how to right-size it, and then tell me how you can add measurements and accountability where you can utilize technologies to increase efficiencies and to get rid of waste and fraud. One of the first hires I made was a chief performance officer. We’ve been doing DOGE in Maryland long before anyone knew what that word was.

This is a good segue, because you, maybe more than any other public official right now, are reckoning with the consequences of these big cuts, both to the federal workforce and to the number one USAID recipient, with close to a billion dollars, which is Johns Hopkins. How are you thinking about this?

If you believe in cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, the answer is that so do I. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve pulled together initiatives, doing everything from fleet management to IT consolidation, to looking at procurement reform — we’re doing massive procurement reform looking at real estate. There’s certain buildings, for example, that are on state rolls — I don’t know why these buildings are on the state rolls, so get them off the balance sheet! But we’re being transparent, and we really are focusing on how you can have a measure of expertise that’s helping to guide the decisions about what is necessary and what is not. We’re not doing what are oftentimes seemingly arbitrary and ideological and cruel cuts. For example, I think they are very clear about their intention to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. You need to create some delta if you want to be able to fulfill those numbers. But it’s about a larger sense of prioritization that I think has been pretty destructive.

I’m now going on my third year as governor. And for the third straight year, our budget is actually smaller than the year before. But you can do that and also still increase efficiencies, increase accountability and increase your output. But I think you have to be really smart about the way that it’s done, so you’re not actually laying off people who were serving essential tasks. So I believe that we can actually do this together, and I’m eager to be a partner with the federal government. I just know that when those decisions are being made, it’s good if there are people who actually have expertise in those areas who are helping you to make those decisions —- because we would —- versus people who, frankly, have no idea what these agencies even do, and those people are making decisions on what the head count should be.

A lot of your Democratic constituents would probably say they’d like you to fight back harder, that they want Democrats — whatever this means — to fight. Do you feel that pressure, that Democrats ought to be more confrontational?

I’m not the leader of the resistance. I’m the governor of Maryland. My job is to make sure that the six and a half million people who I represent are being seen, supported, heard and protected. Now, to do that, that sometimes means pushing back hard on what this federal government is doing, and specifically because when you’re looking at some of these cuts, this is having a distinct impact on the people of my state. We have over 160,000 federal employees in the state of Maryland. We have the highest percentages of federal employees on a per capita basis that are inside of the state of Maryland. This is already having distinct impacts on our economy, on our income taxes and on our unemployment rates. So this is very real for me. It is something that I think we all have a unique responsibility to be able to address. But I would say that the message I keep on getting from voters is that “fight back” means to make sure we’re doing the job of protecting our people.

What does that mean concretely, with these job cuts?

Well, we’ve already had to be pretty creative. In fact, just last week, we launched five specific initiatives that were focusing on supporting our federal workers. There are places in the state of Maryland where we know there are real vacancies. So, for example, we have tens of thousands of vacancies for certified teachers inside of our classrooms. And if we have people who can serve as educators, who can serve as nurses, who can serve in other roles that have real shortages, I’ve instructed our Department of Health and our head of education to get them the certifications they need, the teacher licenses they need. If there’s a person who’s qualified and we know we have a shortage, well, guess what? Need, and asset — meet them and do it quickly. And it’s the same thing with the private sector, where we’re working with a lot of our partners there.

I was talking with the lead head of a large technology company, and he said, “You’re telling me you have a person with a PhD and with a TS clearance, who’s been working at NIH, working on something that is very specific, and now they are out of a job? I would really like to know their name.” And so this is a time when I think the private sector also has a chance to go after some real talent that is available, people who are working really important jobs for the federal government who now, pretty arbitrarily, find themselves out of that role. I think this is actually a place where the public and private sectors can actually get together and do some interesting work.