A new broom sweeps clean, goes the old saying, but President Trump needs to approach the federal bureaucracy with more than just a broom. -
Glenn H. ReynoldsMaybe something like a bulldozer.
- With an imminent budget crisis — on her way out the door, Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen informed us that, oh by the way, the federal government was out of cash...
And there’s another move that Trump should take, one that will not only save money and improve efficiency, but also
return the United States to the Founders’ intent: He should abandon the bloated, unconstitutional federal civil-service system...- Under our “professional” civil service, though, no one is really in charge.
- Presidents can’t fire the government’s many middle, and even fairly senior, managers without a lot of hassle.
The thought was that this would give us an efficient,
well-run government staffed by politically neutral, expert bureaucrats. We don’t have those.
- They’re not neutral, for one thing; they’re Democratic apparatchiks who can’t be fired by a Republican president — or a Democratic one, for that matter...
- A recent poll by Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan Institute found that huge numbers of federal managers — 42% — would do their best to resist the Trump administration’s initiatives, something we saw occurring during Trump’s first term.
- Not only that, they’re not experts, either: I defy anyone to examine the record of the federal bureaucracy over the past decade and suggest that it reeks of expertise.
- It just plain reeks...
