The Biden administration is still operating a COVID-era policy of allowing the federal workforce to work remotely, despite inefficiency and waste, in order to keep them "happy at all costs," according to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.
In the end, Biden needs their votes in November, Comer told The Daily Mail.
Comer and congressional Republicans have been demanding answers from the Biden administration about the percentage of the workforce that's still working remotely and how often they're coming to the office.
"It's all crap. Every caseworker here, whether they're Democrat or Republican; every office we have caseworkers, they will all tell you it is impossible to get someone on the phone now in any governance, push Social Security, whether it's the [Veterans Administration] you know, trying to get passport, it doesn't matter," Comer told The Daily Mail.
The federal government employs 2 million people and spends a combined $7 billion operating federal buildings and on leases, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) memo obtained by The Daily Mail in December. Knowing who is actually coming to work would allow Republicans to push for accountability on shaving some of those costs.
"We found in our investigation that some buildings are as low as 8% occupied," Comer told The Daily Mail. "We can consolidate workers into buildings and liquidate buildings and save on utility bills — that's greener — save on repairs and maintenance and things like that.
"But this administration doesn't want to do anything. All they want to do is spend more money and attack Donald Trump."
Republicans in March sent a letter to the administration demanding that they bring federal workers back to in-person work. President Joe Biden's chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients, ordered Cabinet heads to do the same late in 2023, according to the report.
It didn't happen, according to a Department of Agriculture whistleblower, who wrote to Congress of an "impersonal and inefficient" work environment caused by full-time remote work, adding that the department's headquarters resembled a "ghost town," The Daily Mail reported.
"Biden's main objective with the federal workforce, in my opinion, is to keep them happy at all costs so they'll go vote for him," Comer told the outlet.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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