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Federal employees in the hot seat as GOP senator pushes transparency proposal: 'Historic opportunity'
Fox News ^ | December 17, 2025 | Alec Schemmel

Posted on 12/18/2025 6:19:38 PM PST by deks

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, introduced legislation that would compel the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to create a public directory of federal government employees, including their salaries, job descriptions and other details.

[A] fiscal watchdog group also found that the names of 383,000 federal workers from 56 different agencies were redacted, amounting to a total of $38.3 billion in pay.

"Like a twisted game of reverse Secret Santa, taxpayers are gifting paychecks to bureaucrats who remain anonymous."

"The American people should not be forced to play ‘Where’s Waldo’ when it comes to figuring out where federal workers are during the workday. I will be embracing the Christmas spirit by creating a list, that anyone can check twice, to clearly state where every federal employee is and how much they are being paid."

The current federal workforce is costing American taxpayers $673,000 per minute, $40.4 million per hour and just under $1 billion per day, according to Open The Books.

According to the data, while the total number of employees rose by 5% since 2020, payroll grew nearly five times as much.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: bloated; bureaucracy; draintheswamp; employees; federalemployees; labor; missing; opm; personnel; workforce
Draining the swamp.
1 posted on 12/18/2025 6:19:38 PM PST by deks
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To: deks

How will the democrats attack this when they are wanting to pass laws outlawing ICE agents and police from wearing masks?


2 posted on 12/18/2025 6:27:01 PM PST by Organic Panic ('Was I molested. I think so' - Ashley Biden in response to her father joining her in the shower)
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To: deks

We are all suckers.


3 posted on 12/18/2025 6:29:32 PM PST by crusty old prospector
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To: deks

“...total number of employees rose by 5% since 2020, payroll grew nearly five times as much.”

Nah, Xiden wouldn’t have anything to so with this.


4 posted on 12/18/2025 6:35:00 PM PST by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
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To: deks

Would we find Ray Epps as a federal employee?


5 posted on 12/18/2025 6:41:29 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (Democrats seek power through cheating and assassination. They are sociopaths. They just want power.)
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To: quantim

There are 600k people named Biden on the payroll.


6 posted on 12/18/2025 6:49:51 PM PST by HYPOCRACY (Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )
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To: deks

That only $100k per person on average. That number sounds exceedingly low, especially if you factor in the associated benefits and the promised, but unaccounted for retirement.


7 posted on 12/18/2025 7:15:54 PM PST by Sgt_Schultze (When your business model depends on slave labor, you're always going to need more slaves.)
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To: deks
I agree...

Getting all those cushy fed job protections means that the taxpayers have the right, no the responsibility, to know all financial details of the job's costs...

8 posted on 12/18/2025 7:19:35 PM PST by SuperLuminal (Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)
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To: deks; All
Thank you for referencing that article deks.

Federal employees in the hot seat as GOP senator pushes transparency proposal: 'Historic opportunity'


The bill needs to include a reference to the constitutional clause that reasonably justifies a given federal job too imo.

The post-16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular vote for federal senators) Amendments ratification Congress and Oval Office will be the ones in the hot seat imo.

This is an interesting bill since the Founding States constitutionally required Congress to publish receipts for ALL federal spending.

Article I, Section 9, Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. [emphasis added]

In fact, consider that lawmakers of the 14th Congress during the James Madison Administration (4th pres.) had found some existing tax revenues and got all happy about spending it. So Congress drafted the Bonus Bill of 1817 to improve military readiness and commerce by authorizing the construction of roads and canals intended to facilitate moving troops and manufactured goods, Congress basing the bill solely on the General Welfare Clause.

While Madison agreed with Congress that the bill would improve transportation, he diplomatically clarified in his veto explanation (ahem) that while the GWC authorized Congress to tax and spend, the clauses that followed it in Section 8 were intended to limit what Congress could spend tax dollars for, no mention of roads and canals for Congress's purpose for the Bonus Bill. Madison also noted that the bonus bill didn't even pass Congress wild card excuse for justifying spending, the now infamous "Necessary and Proper Clause."

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper [emphasis added] for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.President James Madison, March 3, 1817: Veto Message on the Internal Improvements Bill

Congress had flunked Constitution 101(!) under "Professor" Madison, Madison generally regarded as the father of the Constitution.

9 posted on 12/18/2025 7:53:18 PM PST by Amendment10
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To: ClearCase_guy

I betcha we would.


10 posted on 12/18/2025 8:09:13 PM PST by dinodino ( Shut it down anyway. )
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

11 posted on 12/18/2025 8:45:19 PM PST by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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To: Amendment10

Thank you for the information!


12 posted on 12/18/2025 11:08:44 PM PST by deks (Deo duce, ferro comitante · God for guide, sword for companion)
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To: deks

Would this include all congressmen and judges?


13 posted on 12/19/2025 4:11:14 AM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: deks

Same hypocrite that railed against Federal employees teleworking while she and her staff had unlimited telework.


14 posted on 12/19/2025 5:42:25 AM PST by XRdsRev (Justice for Bernell Trammell, black Trump supporter, executed in the street in broad daylight 2020.a)
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To: deks

“According to the data, while the total number of employees rose by 5% since 2020, payroll grew nearly five times as much.”

Ok this sounds like total BS. We have been operating on CR’s for the last decade and funding for most agencies has remained stagnant. There is no way on earth that payroll costs have risen by 25%. If they did, the Ernst was voting for those raises every time a new CR came up.

She often cited BS data. During the telework debate she kept saying that 90% of Federal employees were working from home which has never been the case (even during COVID). Only 49% of Federal jobs were even telework eligible and not all of those teleworked.


15 posted on 12/19/2025 5:57:42 AM PST by XRdsRev (Justice for Bernell Trammell, black Trump supporter, executed in the street in broad daylight 2020.a)
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To: ViLaLuz

“Would this include all congressmen and judges?”
____________________________________________________________

You can already look up the total pay and compensation of congress members and judges with a simple Google search. They are established by law.


16 posted on 12/19/2025 12:32:31 PM PST by Bob Wills is still the king
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