Fiorina: 'I Will Not Replace a Single' Retiring Federal Worker

CNS News.com ^ | August 10, 2015 | Susan Jones

[CA Conservative]

Which is why Fiorina's statement is gutless. I'd like to see the courts try to specify how many people I need to "protect" the desert tortoise.

Your statement does not make any sense. Why is it gutless?

Let's assume you are president. The EPA has 10,000 more employees than you think they need. You send a budget to Congress requesting the 10,000 positions be eliminated from the budget. Congress ignores you, and appropriates funds for the entire existing staffing level.

So, what do you do as president? Do you veto the appropriation bill and shut down all departments included in that bill? That is one option, but one few presidents or Congresses have been able to sustain for long. Do you fire the 10,000 employees anyway, even though they are protected by the Civil Service act and possibly union contracts? If so, how does that make you different from Obama, deciding which laws to enforce and which ones to ignore?

[Carry_Okie]

Let's assume you are president. The EPA has 10,000 more employees than you think they need. You send a budget to Congress requesting the 10,000 positions be eliminated from the budget. Congress ignores you, and appropriates funds for the entire existing staffing level.

There is a false presumption here in that you are saying Congress specifies the number of positions. They appropriate DOLLARS, not positions, to fill a request to fund a number of positions. My Treasury sets up the accounts, but that does not mean I MUST, by law, spend every dime. Congress doesn't tell me how many people I MUST hire or retain because determining staffing levels is an executive function, not a legislative function. They only tell me how much I can have to accomplish the goals they directed (per an ESA relying upon unconstitutional Section 1531 treaty "authority"). I can decide that I'll get more tortoises by giving Mr. Bundy a contract to increase their numbers with his cows, which he very easily can do, as tortoises depend upon post disturbance plants requiring the nitrates the cows leave behind. But I digress.

Layoff. Contract it out. Make more tortoises and watch the courts squirm using NEPAs citation of "market failure" as supposedly legitimate justification for the emergency powers to protect public health and safety they've been citing as basis for this crap. The market wants to do it. The agency will have to get out of the way and that means they are not needed. Instead I had spent less money more efficiently and eliminated the need for staffing in the process.

Done. And that's just one example.

[CA Conservative]

They appropriate DOLLARS, not positions, to fill a request to fund a number of positions.

True. But have you ever worked in government and tried to eliminate a position for which funding was available? Laying someone off from a government job when the budget has been cut is not easy, but doable. You still have a bunch of juggling to do, people bumping according to seniority, etc., but at the end of the day, you can wind up with fewer people. But try doing that when the budget hasn't been cut - it is almost impossible to do. Now if we could change the law to eliminate government unions and civil service protections, that would make a big difference. But without those changes, what you are suggesting would be tied up in the courts until long after the then-current president was out of office.

I am not opposed to the concept - I have just worked in government long enough to know that the idea of doing wholesale layoffs, absent a budget cut to justify it, is right up there with getting an amendment banning abortion passed and ratified - it may be technically possible (i.e., there is a non-zero possibility it could happen), but it is not likely barring some other major changes first.

[Carry_Okie]

But have you ever worked in government and tried to eliminate a position for which funding was available? Laying someone off from a government job when the budget has been cut is not easy, but doable. You still have a bunch of juggling to do, people bumping according to seniority, etc., but at the end of the day, you can wind up with fewer people. But try doing that when the budget hasn't been cut - it is almost impossible to do.

How long has it been since there have been real conservatives in charge of these agencies? Twenty-five years, at least.

All you are telling me is that the system is impacted with mid-level bureaucrats whose paychecks are justified by the size of their budgets and staff. Yet managers are easier to fire than the unionized rank and file.

Spend the money on the contracting, validate the results independently, and... OOPS.

It's not that hard. What we need is people in charge with contacts in academia and the resource management industry who have guts and know what they are doing. That's the hard part for politicians to identify.