Federal Hiring Freeze To Be Lifted

The Trump administration is expected to lift its federal hiring freeze on Wednesday, Office of Management and Budget Director Nick Mulvaney announced.

Speaking at a briefing Tuesday, Mulvaney said the suspension on hiring, in place since Jan. 24, will be replaced by a "smarter plan, more strategic plan, a more surgical plan" to downsize the executive branch of the government.

While the hiring freeze was never comprehensive -- hiring of military, national security and public safety personnel, were exempted -- the new directive can be seen as an outcome of President Donald Trump's initial budget proposal. It calls for deep cuts to some agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, and hiring increases to others, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It is ultimately Congress that sets executive branch spending levels.

"The government [reorganization] is probably the biggest story nobody is talking about. We're trying to do something that's never been done," Mulvaney said, adding that the executive branch "has never been rebuilt. It has grown organically over the course of the last 240 years."