Tag Archives: government

Why Would They Want To?

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The lede says it all, even if the article is a bit dated now.

The leader of Senate Democrats moved to take the threat of a government shutdown off the table, following a grueling intraparty fight in which lawmakers struggled with how best to resist President Trump’s fast-paced efforts to slim down federal agencies.

Why would the Progressive-Democratic Party object to slimming Federal agencies and making them more efficient?

Oh, wait—this is the Party that insists Government knows better than us poor, benighted and ignorant average Americans, and that the way to make Government more efficient is to grow it in both financial and physical size and give it more control over our lives.

Who Really Needs Security Clearances?

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors have got their panties in a twist because President Donald Trump (R) has withdrawn Perkins-Coie’s Federal security clearances among other actions regarding the law firm. The editors claim it’s all about Trumpian retribution:

That’s the only way to read his extraordinary executive orders targeting big Washington law firms for federal punishment and investigation. Mr. Trump’s decision to use government power to punish firms for representing clients breaks a cornerstone principle of American justice going back to John Adams and the Founders.

Perhaps. But that’s the editors’ spin, and they present it, in typical news opinionator fashion, as if it were fact and the only possible fact of the matter.

On the other hand, it’s also true that Perkins-Coie, other big Washington law firms, and the individual lawyers in those organizations have no need whatsoever for blanket, routinely extant, Federal security clearances just because. Those should be granted on a case-by-case basis, centered on the lawyers directly involved needing access to classified material in order to defend a client. Furthermore, as soon as that defense is concluded, or as soon as the lawyers in question are no longer involved, those clearances should be canceled; they’d no longer be needed.

Neither should a law firm itself have any security clearance at all. Only those lawyers directly involved in a case needing classified access should have the associated clearance.

These editors would do well to get their angst back under control.

He Thinks It’s a Countermove

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Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) is making a big deal out of his offer of jobs in the Pennsylvania State government to those terminated Federal bureaucrats who would be interested.

The commonwealth recognizes that a workforce of dedicated and talented public servants is the backbone of a responsive government that can ensure the efficient and effective delivery of services for Pennsylvanians[.]

Kudos to Shapiro, I say, for all that his motive is so highly questionable. There’s no doubt that the vast majority of Federal bureaucrats are talented, dedicated workers, and being offered jobs at the State level that match their skill sets is a Good Thing.

None of that, though, alters the simple fact that Federal employment is not an inherent right and that Federal bureaucrats are not entitled to any Federal job, much less any Federal sinecure. Neither does any of that alter the simple fact that these Federal bureaucrats are unnecessary to the function of the Federal government, and their redundancy should be recognized and acted on.

Indeed, those making the Federal cuts have said from the outset that the bureaucrats’ firings do not in any way impugn their skill, talent, or dedication—it’s simply that they are not needed; their job positions themselves are redundant.

Another Precinct Pipes Up

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The Merit Systems Protection Board has ordered the Department of Agriculture to

temporarily reinstate all of its nearly 6,000 probationary employees, who were fired by the Trump administration last month.

Probationary employees are just that—in trial periods of their employment—and they can be fired for any reason at all during their probationary period. Merit, or its lack, need have nothing to do with their termination.

This board is an independent quasi-judicial agency whose three members are Presidential nominees subject to Senate confirmation. As such, the board is an arm of the Executive Branch and so subject to the control of the President, as the Supreme Court ruled in the matter of firing the chairman of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

This is another “independent” agency that’s out of control and needs to be brought to heel.

Why Not?

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The press’ “government officials” now say that President Donald Trump (R) is planning to eliminate the US Postal Service’s Board of Governors and fold the USPS into the Department of Commerce. On the other hand, a “White House official” says that’s not so.

For the hyperventilators in the audience, here is the sum and total of what our Constitution says about a postal service. It’s in Article I, Section 8:

[The Congress shall have Power…] To establish Post Offices and Post Roads

Nothing in there about establishing or maintaining a postal service, only the post offices, useful for dropping off and collecting mail and packages for transporting over those post roads—of latter which we have an enormous network of roads over which to carry that mail and those packages, along with extensive railroad and air shipping networks capable of the same. Those post offices are directly analogous, and no more useful than, FedEx and UPS drop-off and pickup offices.

A move to consolidate the USPS into Commerce has the potential of reducing duplicative governance. It also would give those with commerce expertise—to the extent such exists in the Federal government—control over what is, essentially, a commerce enterprise—the movement as shipper of First Class mail and packages as well as intermediary shipper of other shippers’ packages.

Of course, the better move would be to completely privatize the USPS and let it compete with existing shippers for the movement of all mail, including First Class, just as it does now with packages. USPS already has a serious advantage in such competition: a last mile network that reaches every household and business in the nation, which none of its potential competition (with the possible exception of Amazon, for its own exclusive use).

Still, consolidation would be a good start.