Posted on 02/08/2025 11:45:10 AM PST by Libloather
CNN — The last 140 years have been littered with promises by presidents to fix the federal bureaucracy.
Back in the late 1880s, when unqualified political appointees were wasting taxpayer dollars, there was a move to professionalize government workers in a merit-based bureaucracy. The effort gained momentum after then-President James Garfield was shot and killed by a disaffected former supporter with mental illness who was angry at not getting a job in Garfield’s administration.
The US has a bureaucracy for a reason The political “spoils” system, which the bureaucracy replaced, was demonized for its cronyism, inefficiency and graft.
Now, ironically, President-elect Donald Trump demonizes professional government workers as part of a “deep state,” and his incoming administration wants to uproot and replace them with political appointees more responsive to elected officials.
History undoing itself.
Remembering REGO, which came before DOGE
There’s a much more recent and applicable chapter that directly echoes Trump’s appointment of efficiency czars in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were on Capitol Hill Thursday to gain support for the nongovernmental advisory effort they’re spinning up and calling the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Three decades ago, the new president promising change was Democrat Bill Clinton. His charge to then-Vice President Al Gore was to streamline government through a National Performance Review, or NPR. Supporters referred to it in shorthand as “reinventing government,” or REGO.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
When they re-invented government it looked and acted the same. They did have a nice report to brag about what they did.
Unfortunately, a separations of powers issue.
I guess no one took or remembers basic civics. Three co-equal branches of government. Trump\Musk only have the executive branch.
Many of the recommendations by cross agency reviews completely missed the boat in REGO. They had no idea how various programs were run and why. They eliminated jobs they knew nothing about and thereby caused vital infrastructure to deteriorate. There is not enough money to repair it now. I was there then and see the impact now.
Can you think of anyone who has amassed so much money as algore and produced less? I can’t. It’s a miracle what he has done. The Tennessee Grifter.
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