I’ll go so far as to say there are plenty of hard working, federal workers in non-essential positions. By non-essential, I mean in jobs that are not in support of constitutionally enumerated federal powers. The problem isn’t the workers so much as the voters who keep asking the federal government to take on more and more.
I don’t blame anyone for taking a federal job. What do folks want good people to do? Turn down federal work so that only leftists work for government?!? That’s crazy!
Stop asking government to do things that people should be doing for themselves! Start reducing government back to its core tasks.
This will take time, folks. You do this all at once, and we WILL have a depression or worse. You ELIMINATE those programs, over time, that do not support the constitutionally enumerated powers. You return the employees in those programs, over time, to the private work force (and/or transfer the brightest into core jobs).
I know people are fired up to slash government. I’m all for that, too, but it took us 80 years to get here. You try returning millions of federal employees to civilian jobs all at once, and you are going to have an unbelievable mess. Or, you do some asinine across-the-board cut and the best, hardest working folks will bail, leaving the dregs to run the programs (which will still be there albeit not as well funded).
“I’ll go so far as to say there are plenty of hard working, federal workers in non-essential positions.”
Didn’t mean to infer that that they weren’t, only that those positions should be reviewed to determine if they should be eliminated or if the function can be done more efficiently and effectively in the private sector.
I think the Post Office, which is very protective of it’s turf, is one that needs to be evaluated. They should allow private competition and draw down as necessary and deliver only in areas where there is no private delivery, even this may be better accomplished by state or county government. This may increase cost per item but would greatly decrease the overall expenditure.
On the other hand I think EMS is an example of government addressing a clear need that was not being effectively done by the private sector. There were some very good ambulance services but not nearly enough to meet the need, many areas had to rely on funeral homes or police “crash wagons” (often with limited medical training) in a medical emergency.
I tend to be more pragmatic than many on this forum, as I believe the purpose of the Constitution was more to protect the people from oppression by the government than to strictly limit the functions of government. Having said that, all functions of government should have a clear purpose, well defined duties and have strict oversight, as government is mostly isolated from market forces.