Will There Be An Internal Revolt Against Trump?

Commentary Magazine ^ | January 13, 2017 | Tevi Troy

[RightGeek]

My first face-to-face encounter with the federal bureaucracy came on January 22, 2001.

...

This was my first introduction to the challenges of the federal bureaucracy. Trying to get anything done requires knowing the pulse points and the people—and then crossing your fingers that they can or will comply. Of course, as a conservative from the think tank world, I had heard tales of the liberal bias of career officials. The skepticism about the ideological motivations of career officials was a subset of a larger conservative skepticism about the administrative state. Steven Hayward sums up this attitude nicely in his new book Patriotism Is Not Enough: “That bureaucratic government is the partisan instrument of the Democratic Party is the most obvious, yet least remarked upon, trait of our time.”

Transition briefers had warned us of the practice of “burrowing in.” This term refers to the maneuver by political officials at the end of an administration to shift their jobs into the career civil service, thereby securing lifetime tenure and allowing them to advance their ideological agendas or simply impede needed reforms. Early on, we saw a shameless attempt at burrowing in at the Department of Labor in the person of the woman who had been Labor Secretary Alexis Herman’s chief of staff. She tried to convince us that she was sympathetic to the incoming administration. Knowing that I had worked for Missouri Senator John Ashcroft, she told me that they worshipped at the same church. I was unconvinced, as was the savvy Labor secretary for whom I worked, Elaine Chao, now Donald Trump’s nominee as secretary of transportation. Later, but not that much later, we saw that the attempted burrower had gone on to become chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee.

[AZLiberty]

President Reagan knew how to handle recalcitrant government employees.

[Surfscoter]

The Trump Administration should secure office space in Bismarck, ND, Fargo, SD, western and similar locales. Those civil servants who cannot be fired for cause and don’t get with the program should be promptly transferred to these new field offices and assigned cubicles to do their jobs.

[catnipman]

“When Trump reduces all agencies’ budgets by 20%, we could expect seniority to force out persons hired in the past 7-10 years. As you know, that gets rid of 0’s hires. “

Indeed. Internal revolt is nonsense. With 20% immediate cuts, these people will be focusing on clawing each others eyes out to save their own hides, not “revolting” against President Trump. Heck, they’ll be begging President Trump to let them stay!

I also expect it won’t actually be an across-the-board type of cut, but whole programs and sub-departments will be targeted for complete elimination. That way all of obama’s programs and associated personnel can be cleanly excised (with no possibility of successful lawsuits), leaving the useful, core parts of the departments to get back to their basic function of serving we-the-people.

[catnipman]

This article is leftist fantasy.

See my post 23:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3515898/posts?#23

[Scott from the Left Coast]

An even simpler strategy...and a more permanent fix...you have the House and the Senate, change the law. Once they can be fired, fire them (they’ll all retire first).

[TBP]

Likely. Bureaucrats are unlikely to yield power unless forced. Otherwise, the only job they could likely get involves asking people if they’d like fries with that.

Trump needs to take a page from JFK. When JFK came in, he had tussles with the Bureau of the Budget, which, over time, had filled up with Republican staff. So he abolished it and replaced it with the Office of Management and Budget.

Most agencies need to be abolished and not replaced, but some have important functions. If they’re infested, kill them and create a new agency.

[wgmalabama]

As with any organization (private or public) the 10 percent doin 80 percent of the work know the 30 percent doing the other 40 percent of the work and the 60 percent doing -20 percent of the work. Just my two cents. The question is what group is in management.

[Rusty0604]

I did. Too bad federal employees were ever allowed to unionize.

[stylin19a]

-fire political appointees.

- eliminate positions

- freeze pay increases

- offer early retirement and see what the attrition rate is. Give ‘em 30 days to decide.

- change pay grades per job positions - GS10 is now GS7

[Vince Ferrer]

Political leaders have tools with which to combat intentionally dilatory behavior. Senior politicals do annual reviews for careers, and these reviews affect bonuses and salary increases. Politicals also have some say over assignments and placement. An obstinate employee can't be fired, as we have seen, but can be offered a job at the same level in North Dakota or another distant state. This does not have to be done too often before word spreads that the politicals know how to use the tools at their disposal and that they are willing to employ them.

Its exactly because of the difficulties this article brings up that I have advocated moving people rather than trying to fire them, just like the article does. My suggestion is to put a federal building in Barrow, Alaska, the only American town above the Artic circle. Any employee you want to fire, just transfer there instead. They will probably get the hint and get a job somewhere else.

If Trump wants to make big changes, then move the entire agency out of the D.C. area, to a city somewhere in the country not as glamourous as being in the beltway. Large numbers of people will leave. Move the whole Department of Agriculture to Wichita or Des Moines, for example.

[TigerClaws]

That’s a great idea.

Scatter the various agencies to other parts of the country (states that voted Republican) and break up the monopoly of power.

It’s like HUNGER GAMES now with 4 of the 5 richest counties in the country surrounding D.C.

[maddog55]

In order to force folks out through a RIF (Reduction in Force) they start with high tenure and then offer incentives to leave early.

I think the key is getting the legislation passed where you can actually fire civil service employees that are useless. That would reduce the force by 50% (s) and get rid of all liberal employees.

Liberal employee is an oxymoron.

[xzins]

He can accomplish that pretty quickly thru attrition. I was assuming he was talking about non-personnel budget cuts since he already has a plan for that.

[wastoute]

We need a penguin census in Antarctica!

[trebb]

Yep - nothing like a RIF to get rid of the newbies. Still way to many left-wing partisans in senior positions though.

[spintreebob]

Trump needs to carefully choose his :Air Traffic Controller: type of fight... A fight he can win and which will send the right message to the bureaucrats.

Also, the alleged Republican author of the article seems to accept -The-mission-of-the-agency- much more quickly than most FReepers. Suppose the states are given block grant for Medicaid and there are no Federal rules or guidelines. Then there is no more thousands of people writing IT regulations in MITA-Medicaid Information Technology Architecture.

For 7.5 years the MITA bureacuracy slow-walked regulations they agreed with. Slow-walking is the normal procedure in these agencies.

Only in the past 6 months has Slavitt found some fast-walkers to push through an avalanche of new regulations for both MITA and all other parts of CMS.

[jazzlite]

Those rooted down deep in the bureaucracies are a great danger for many are leftists who will oppose the goals of the administration. In the old days, at least in our state, when a new governor came in, he ousted most of the previous bureaucratic workers. Often, he would rehire some of them, but there was a clean sweep. Then, it was changed to not allow that which most thought was a good idea. Now, I wonder whether this allowed a kind of hidden tyranny to grow which our form of government does not need. I hope the Trump administration will take a hard look at the people in those bureaucracies and change all of them if need be to root out any troublemakers.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

people in those bureaucracies and change all of them if need be to root out any troublemakers.

The only bureaucRATs that aren't troublemakers, are the silent and oppressed secret Republicans. They're likely the only ones who are actually doing the work of running their offices.

Otherwise the departments and agencies exist to perpetuate and expand themselves, as they mostly serve as a ready-made army of campaign workers for RATs.

So yeah....JFK XO'd the unions into existence, Trump needs to decertify the unions and tell them:

YOU'RE FIRED!!!

[TalBlack]

It’ll be interesting for sure. Trump will audit progress of any reforms PERSONALLY. He will detect mole activity very quickly. He didn’t climb to the top just to be undone by rats...the will be TROUBLE.

[montag813]

You can’t fire these civil servants, unless broad legal changes are made. But you can sideline them. Suspend them with pay “pending review,” exclude them from meetings, reorganize decision structures to block them out of real power. Add positions above them or in parallel to bypass them. Do all this on day one