President Trump’s latest big move to fix the federal government isn’t going to make many of those who have burrowed into the bureaucracy for career positions very happy.
It was inevitable when Americans elected a successful billionaire that he would ultimately use his private industry experience to run the government more like a business where efficiency and competence are rewarded over tenure.
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Workers who had been leeching off of the American taxpayers for years were already restive as Trump began to whittle down the size of the bloated beast along the Potomac by not filling 1,000s of jobs during his first year in office.
The POTUS is now on the verge of shaking up the civil service by introducing the alien concept that the best and most competent people would be hired and rewarded, while the slackers and dead wood will be cleaned out just as they are in corporate America.
Trump plan: 'Hire the best and fire the worst' https://t.co/2ldfEAcUvo by @gregorykorte
— USA TODAY's The Oval (@TheOval) February 9, 2018
Via USA Today “’Hire the best and fire the worst’: Trump proposes biggest civil service change in 40 years”:
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President Trump will seek to “hire the best and fire the worst” federal government employees under the most ambitious proposal to overhaul the civil service in 40 years, officials said.
The measures will be outlined in the budget plan that Trump will send to Congress Monday, said four Office of Management and Budget officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget hasn’t been released.
Trump foreshadowed the proposal in a line in his State of the Union address last week: “Tonight, I call on Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people,” he said.
Trump is using the VA Accountability Act, which gave the Secretary of Veterans Affairs greater authority to fire and discipline workers, as a model. The White House says that law has resulted in the dismissal of 1,470 employees, the suspension of 443, demotions for 83 others last year.
The idea that inefficient workers should be sent packing predictably didn’t go over well with Democrats and other liberals, including unions, that protect those who have long contributed to bad government.
Via Bloomberg “Trump Call to Limit Civil Service Protection Riles Democrats”:
Democrats and union leaders expressed alarm after President Donald Trump asked Congress in his State of the Union speech to make it easier for him to fire federal workers, a proposal that would undermine longstanding protections for U.S. civil servants.
David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said Trump’s call for more power over the federal workforce was “concerning” because it could allow Trump and his Cabinet to fire workers who have different political views.
“Obviously if you’re running Trump Enterprises, in the private sector, you get to hire and fire anybody you want to,” he said. “But we’re running the United States of America that is governed by the Constitution.”
It’s really a pretty ridiculous argument that Mr. Cox is putting forth and he should be called upon to point out exactly what part of the Constitution protects lazy, unproductive and incompetent workers from being held accountable just as those in the civilian workforce are.
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It’s just more whining from the left who no longer have the capability of presenting legitimate arguments based on the issues instead of making everything an attack on Trump.
This is another loser for Democrats if they choose to add protecting entitled civil service workers as another of the hills that they are prepared to die on.
Ordinary hard-working Americans who enjoy neither the pay, benefits or protections of those who have long suckled at the big government teat are unlikely to have much sympathy for those who are finally facing the unimaginable horror of being judged on their own merits.
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