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Washington, D.C.— Cutting $54 billion from non-military programs in 2018 would be disastrous for all citizens who rely on government services as well as their fellow Americans who provide those services, said National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) National President Tony Reardon.

Various media reports indicate that President Trump will call for massive reductions in the budgets for many key federal agencies, including those with employees represented by NTEU, like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“Our concern is two-fold. The very missions of these government programs would be jeopardized by such drastic cuts and thousands of federal employees around the country would likely lose their jobs,” Reardon said. “Starving federal agencies without regard to the vital services they provide to Americans is short-sighted and would inflict serious damage to the U.S. economy.”

NTEU and its allies in Congress will fight such deep and indiscriminate cuts in order to protect the civil servants in the federal workforce and the taxpayers who rely on their professionalism to oversee the safety of food and medical devices, process disability claims, prevent childhood hunger, assist tribal communities with health care, and collect the revenue our country needs to operate, just to name a few of the jobs performed by NTEU members around the country.

Regarding the IRS, media reports suggest the administration wants to cut 14 percent, more than $1 billion, in 2018. To put that in perspective, the agency is down $1 billion since 2010 and 17,000 IRS jobs have been eliminated in those seven years.

“The IRS collects 93 percent of our nation’s revenue. You cannot increase defense spending and cut IRS funding at the same time. It does not add up,” Reardon said.

At last count, there was a tax gap of $406 billion in the United States, or taxes that are owed but not collected, according to the Tax Policy Center. In his confirmation hearing, the new Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was surprised by the dramatic headcount loss of 30 percent at the IRS in recent years and that explaining to the president the concept of “we add people, we add money” would be “a very quick conversation.”

“With additional resources, the IRS could collect the money needed to increase defense spending without gutting domestic agencies and social safety nets,” Reardon said.

Such cuts would also have a disproportionate impact on middle-class taxpayers who can’t afford to hire their own tax preparers. With thousands of fewer IRS employees, taxpayers needing help to file their returns would have fewer opportunities to obtain free assistance by phone or in person.

Other reports indicate the EPA could be in line for a 24 percent cut, which would have a catastrophic effect on the agency’s ability to monitor compliance with our nation’s clean air and clean water laws.

“Remember, the $54 billion cut proposed by the administration is not savings for the taxpayer: It simply shifts the money, dollar-for-dollar, to an increase in military spending. These across-the-board cuts do not reduce the deficit and are so deep as to make government less efficient, not more,” Reardon said.

The NTEU leader said it is a myth that the federal workforce is expanding. “The fact is that we have fewer federal employees today than we did in 1967: three million compared with 2.1 million in 2016,” he said. At the same time, the U.S. population increased from 199 million to well over 320 million today.

Job losses would be felt in small towns and big cities across the country, as about 85 percent of the federal workforce is outside of the metropolitan D.C. area.

Here is a chart showing the decline in IRS full-time and part-time employees in all 50 states since 2011.

NTEU represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.