January 25th, 2017 by WCBC Radio
President Donald Trump's office says an executive order imposing a federal hiring freeze will slow the dramatic expansion of the government workforce. Trump's directive is fulfilling one of his campaign promises. The new president has vowed to take on the federal bureaucracy and the action could be the first step in an attempt to curtail government employment. The order has been subject to debate in Maryland. Unions representing federal workers decried Trump's action, which implements a hiring freeze across the federal government, with exceptions only for military, national security or public safety personnel. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen spoke out against the freeze in a statement on Monday saying that this "knee-jerk decision involved as much thought as one of the President's many tweets”