Republican says Trump plan would cause 'severe recession' in his district
One Republican U.S. House candidate is publicly coming out against one of former President Donald Trump's policy proposals, particularly due to its negative impact on the economy of the district he hopes to represent.
According to CNBC, Army veteran and attorney Derrick Anderson is opposed to the ex-president's plan to move roughly 100,000 federal government jobs out of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and fire untold scores of public sector workers he describes as "rogue bureaucrats." Anderson told the outlet that he would "oppose any legislation that could weaken national security, raise the cost of living, or hurt VA-7 jobs, regardless of where it comes from."
Roughly 60,000 of the workers who would be affected by that policy live in Virginia's 7th Congressional District, accounting for a whopping 15% of its residents. CNBC reported that even more residents of the district are federal government contractors who would also likely be impacted by massive changes to the federal civil service.
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George Mason University public policy professor Terry Clower told CNBC that uprooting tens of thousands of government workers would have a particularly detrimental impact on the commonwealth's economy, saying that their economic contributions account for roughly $27 billion to $28 billion of Virginia's annual economic activity. He added that for every federal government job created in any community, another 0.6 jobs are created in the area as a result of the economic output of that worker. This would mean that cutting 100,000 jobs would lead to a larger loss of roughly 160,000 total jobs.
"If all of them completely left Virginia in terms of output, that would probably be about 5% of gross state product,” he said. “That’s, by modern terms, a fairly severe recession that that would cause.”
According to USA Facts, the Old Dominion State's economy is one of the largest in the country, posting more than $728 billion in total output just in 2023 alone. When breaking that down by industry, over $117 billion of that comes from government and government enterprises.
Vindman – the brother of Trump-era whistleblower Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — and Anderson are both in agreement in their opposition to Trump's plan to cut large numbers of government jobs. He told CNBC that Trump's proposal would not only be "fundamentally unfair, but devastating to this areas because you’re talking about thousands and tens of thousands pretty well paid jobs – it would be horrible."
The 7th district's current member of Congress is Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia), and it's considered one of the most competitive races in November due to its reputation as a swing seat. The race is now a wide-open contest between Anderson and Lt. Col. Eugene Vindman, who is the Democratic nominee, after Spanberger announced her candidacy for Virginia's 2025 gubernatorial election.
Prior to electing Spanberger in 2018, the district had been represented by far-right Rep. Dave Brat (R-Virginia), and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) before Brat defeated him in the 2014 Republican primary.
Click here to read CNBC's full report.