Trump insiders recently leaked that he is devising a plan to fire over 50,000 federal paycheck collectors if he takes office in 2025.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is Trump plans to replace the fired with 50,000 new hires.
This isn’t draining the Swamp. It’s shuffling the Swamp.
One of the useful actions Trump took while in office was ordering the bureaucracy to eliminate a certain number of old regulations for each new regulation that was issued.
If he applied the same rule to personnel — for each new hire, two or three existing hires must be fired — then we could support hiring the new 50,000 as the old 100,000 cleaned out their collective desks.
Trust us, you won’t miss the dearly departed.
Here’s proof: During the last days of Trump the First, Health and Human Services Chief of Staff Brian Harrison was disturbed by an unusually obvious lack of productivity at the agency.
Harrison "began to track office attendance and found fewer than 10 percent of employees showed up at certain points in 2020."
He then commissioned a study that measured HHS’ staff productivity or lack thereof on a daily basis between March 2020 and December 2020.
The Washington Examiner reports, "An estimated 25 percent of Department of Health and Human Services employees neglected to log on to the agency's software suite, which includes their email, work files, video conference calls, and other applications needed to perform remote work, according to the internal documents."
This simply means telling federal employees to telework is just another way to make every day Cyber Monday for federal online shoppers.
Naturally, a federal program that encourages imaginary work in exchange for real paychecks has the enthusiastic approval of the Swamp bureaucracy.
"The Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the operation of all federal agencies, implemented guidance [in early 2021] that stated: 'Every effort will be made to maximize the use of remote work during widespread community transmission.'"
Proving yet again the federal workforce is simply a conspiracy against the taxpayer.
Here’s how federal teleshopping functions in comparison to local government.
In July, 2021 half of this writing team journeyed to Osawatomie, Kansas to see the John Brown Museum. Osawatomie is a town of 4,447 in northeast Kansas.
The city-run museum was open for business and the one very helpful employee answered the Shannons' questions, gave them a brochure and directed the pair to other noteworthy sights connected with John Brown.
Mrs. Shannon was so impressed by the experience, she wanted to see the Truman White House in Independence, Missouri on the way home.
She called to learn the hours it was open and was informed the National Park Service, with five times the number of employees as there are residents in Osawatomie, had closed the Truman White House, but the Shannons were welcome to walk around outside.
This would have been great had the Shannons wanted to mow the lawn.
Comb-over conservatives in the U.S. House, who are unable to understand federal employees vote left, are fighting to return to the teleshopping policies Democrats supported before 2020.
As if that is an improvement.
Under those pre-coronavirus policies, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) started an "award winning" teleshopping program for both full and part-time patent examiners.
An Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation performed a 15-month analysis of the time 8,399 teleloafing employees claimed to be working and compared the claims to verifiable data. OIG found 288,479 hours of "computer-related examiner activity that was not supported by relevant evidence."
Those "unsupported" hours cost taxpayers $18 million in wages.
Even worse, these 415 had the gall to classify 29of these fictitio% us hours as "overtime" meaning leisure was earning time and a half.
And to put the cherry on top, the crack USPTO supervisors ranked 75% of the 415 timesheet torturers "above-average annual performance ratings" and awarded $8 million in performance bonuses, which is a bit like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) being given a medal by Crime Stoppers.
In what may be the understatement of the year, the OIG concluded, "The findings also suggest that USPTO is paying production bonuses to examiners who are possibly defrauding the agency."
Don’t worry though, we’re sure that just as soon as he completes inventorying every grain of sand outside Mar-a-Lago, John Durham will be on the case.
The fact is Trump could fire 20,000 of HHS’ 80,000 "workers" and taxpayers wouldn’t notice a difference.
We suggest he start with those not checking their email, although he should use the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the termination notices.
As for the rest of the generously named federal "workforce," we strongly urge Trump to cancel all teleworking programs and adopt Elon Musk’s philosophy.
The head of Tesla told his employees that they can either report to the office "or pretend to work somewhere else."
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.