by Fred Lucas
Recent scandals in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Internal
Revenue Service demonstrated that it’s almost impossible to fire federal
employees, many of whom reportedly intend to go rogue by not implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Conservatives are hopeful the time has come for civil service reform
that would rein in this permanent class of government workers who have
voiced outright hostility to the new administration. Some have even
called it the “fourth branch of government” or “alt-government.”
...Among federal employees, about 95 percent of political contributions
went to Democrat Hillary Clinton during the presidential race, according
to an analysis by The Hill. Some of those federal workers are now in consultation with departed
Obama administration officials to determine how they can push back
against the Trump administration’s agenda, The Washington Post reported last week.
At the State Department, for example, nearly 1,000 government
workers signed a letter protesting Trump’s executive order on refugees. A
few days later, Trump had to fire acting Attorney General Sally Yates
after she announced she wouldn’t defend the administration’s refugee
policy.
During the Obama administration, two of its biggest scandals involved
the IRS and Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2013, a Treasury
Department inspector general report determined the IRS had been
targeting conservative groups. In 2014, a VA inspector general’s report
revealed falsified appointments in which some veterans died while
waiting for care.
Years later, conservatives remain frustrated that federal workers weren’t held accountable.
“I will take your IRS employees and raise you the EPA, where story after story, a worker was viewing
porn on work time and couldn’t be fired because the process is fraught
with appeals,” Wilterdink said. “It’s hard to argue we have an
accountable government when someone can’t be fired for years at a time.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. House revived the Holman Rule, named
after a Democrat congressman who introduced it in 1876. It would allow
lawmakers to cut the pay of individual federal workers or a government
program.
There are other proposals for holding federal workers
accountable. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason
Chaffetz, R-Utah, introduced
a bill in January to hold seriously tax delinquent people ineligible
for federal civilian employment, federal contracts, or government
grants. This bill was proposed in response to IRS data that found more
than 100,000 federal civilian employees owed more than $1 billion in
unpaid taxes at the end of fiscal year 2015.
1 comment:
DNC/0bama's legacy of hope n change. More of the change part keeps coming.
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