In an article for The Federalist, Inez Stepman describes the U.S. civil service as a branch of the Democratic Party that does not have the inconvenience of standing for an election.
The efficiency of the federal government is a perpetual joke, due in no small part to a system of employment that makes firing lazy, incompetent, or outright defiant workers nearly impossible…
The frustrations of keeping on inefficient employees pale in comparison to the consequences of shielding an entire class of people who exercise government power from democratic accountability.
In 2016, 95 percent of political donations from federal employees went to Hillary Clinton. After Donald Trump’s election, career staff from multiple agencies gathered publicly to learn how to best employ their official duties to “resist” the policies of the elected president. Bureaucrats whose closest interaction with American voters is likely getting angry at their political uncles at Thanksgiving dinner felt empowered to launch a department investigation into the president’s constitutionally secured power to appoint an agency head.
Apolitical? The only places more politically lopsided than the civil service are our university faculty lounges! The career service could fairly be described as the branch of the Democratic Party that does not have the inconvenience of standing for election.
In Washington DC, continues Ms. Stepman, the public transportation system often has advertisements aimed specifically at the civil service, “galvanizing employees into action to protect and expand government benefits.”
It would be foolish to imagine that the 2.8 million people employed by the ever-expanding administrative state don’t have a vested interest in its continued expansion of power.
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