Posted on 12/11/2024 4:34:58 AM PST by DIRTYSECRET
Let’s disperse the government agencies away from the gridlocked highways and overpriced real estate of the Washington, D.C., area to the economically depressed regions of the country they serve, recycling the federal budget back to the economy from which it came.
(Excerpt) Read more at tabletmag.com ...
While this is laudable it has proven almost impossible to do. Other presidents have tried to move, say, Agriculture, out to where it is needed. The problem is any move generates resistance, and resistance will quickly build to cover everything Trump wants to do and include every group that’s against him making him ineffective at everything. I’d like him to concentrate on easier targets first. Simply defunding some departments might be easier than leaving them in existence and trying to move them. Education should be an easier kill than, say, Agriculture. Just guessing.
Moving agencies out of the district is a good idea for these two reasons:
1)The best antidote to corruption is to make it possible to live well on a government salary. Currently, safe neighborhoods within commuting distance of DC are unaffordable. For example, in the current median house price in Fairfax County is $765K.
One of the worst spies in American history was David Hanssen, a FBI agent based in DC who said the reason he sold secrets to the Soviets was the high cost of living relative to his pay as an FBI agent.
2) DC is incestuous. Government workers hobnob with other government workers and lobbyists including those they are supposted to be regulating or investigating. For example: An FBI agent might live next door to a member of congress under investigation. Their kids might be best friends. Can he be impartial? Or an official at the FDA might have a child that attends the same fancy private school as the child of a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company. Their wives might be friends. Is this not a conflict?
Nothing more to Chicago though, 0 did that with DOL and others :( just more corruption.
NO.
Lincoln Nebraska.
Middle of the Country.
States provide housing for their representatives and staffs.
States pay their elected officials.
keep DC as a historical attraction.
I love this idea. Put the different departments in various states. It connects the employees to the people of the country, prevents a political bubble for forming, and makes what they do more about the job and less abut the cocktail parties. It probably saves money too.
I’ve been saying this for 40 years. Move the seat of government to the Kansas. Washington WAS the center 250 years ago, it no longer is.
“No. Cut the hell out of gummit first, red states or counties don’t want the feds in their backyard either and want to keep that filth away. Especially since the ‘relocations’ will inevitably (partially) be tossed on our federal debt”
Yes, the cuts must come first. Now, imagine how much the gov’t can make selling the real estate for condos! Imagine the money the Dept of Education ALONE is worth. (Especially if DC becomes a tax haven)
In Manhattan, office buildings are converting to residential all over the city. For example: one of New York city’s first sky-scrapers, the Woolworth Building, which stood as the world’s largest tallest building from 1913 to 1929 has been converted to multi-million dollar condos.
The government could make some serious coin selling all that real estate.
No, ELIMINATE “departments.” Good Lord.
Years ago the family visited my wife and mine old stomping grounds of NJ. Did a lot of Revolutionary War stuff, Liberty Bell, Valley Forge, etc.
In D.C. we walked for a long block along a 5 or 6 story building. It was huge. I made the family walk a half-block out of the way to see the sign for the building.
“Department of Agriculture”
“Hey kids - this building holds how many people? A bunch - thousands. Tens of thousands!? And they have offices all over the country with hundreds of people. Do you think George Washington or Thomas Jefferson ever envisioned that it would take tens of thousands of government workers to tell a farmer how to farm?”
I think top EPA officials should be relocated to East Palestine, Ohio - right next to the railroad tracks.
Ha! That too, but we need some of them.
They are ALL liberal bureaucrats BECAUSE they are in a hive there, I have been saying for years get these asshats out across the country if they don’t want to move to bad, it is one way to shrink the BEAST of government!! These people have been living in the DC bubble for far to long!! DIVIDE AND CONQUER, which is exactly what they have been trying to do to this nation, it is time we turned the tables!
Ok… I’ll play. which departments do we need?
To me this is no difference than when Fidelity Investments bought the former Digital Equipment property in Merrimack, NH. Then they offered 90% of the people working in the high rise building in the financial district of downtown Boston the opportunity to move 50 miles north.
Almost every employee jumped at the chance. First off all there is no income tax in NH. So, that is a 5% increase in pay automatically. Next the cost of buying a house is significantly cheaper. Then there is the whole quality of life. Not having to drive in or take the train into Boston.
Fidelity still owns the building in Boston. The executives are still in two floors of the building. The rest is rented out.
So, you might be surprised how many Federal Government employees would love to move out of northern VA, DC or MD. Especially, if they moved their job to some place they could afford to buy a home. Like Tulsa, OK or Charleston, WV or even various places in TX, AL, MS, ME, KY, AR, IN that are all significantly less expensive to just LIVE.
DETROIT! SAN FRANCISCO! CHICAGO! NEW YORK! SEATTLE! PORTLAND! KANSAS!! IOWA!! MONTANA!!
I’ve been recommending this for years. It would work:
A move will purge the leeches. The parasites that do not work but want the check
It spreads the Fed $$ to other cities, which will invigorate them.
do it again in 3-5 years — for reasons just mentioned
So, IF you are working over the internet. There is no reason to live in MD or VA. IF their job is going to continue to be online, then let them live anywhere in the USA. OR, IF they do not want to come into the new facility in Des Moines, or Oklahoma City then they can get another job.
I once worked in Da City. We do not need to all have an office there. That is all.
Dear Former Federal Work-at-Home Employee:
To help fund the rebuilding of Ukraine, your job has been given to a Ukrainian, who will do it for a 1/10th of what you got, on money the US government and the EU took from the Russians.
Such Ukrainians will have money to pay for new Ukrainian buildings.
Elon Musk
Donald J. Trump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.