A few weeks ago, we wrote about fireball Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, (aka Sen. Go Along to Get Along) and her hot letters regarding the federal TeleNap Program that still allows federal employees to sleep-from-home, months after the COVID-19 "pan-hysteria-demic" ended. (The complete column can be found here.)
Ernst — a member of Senate GOP "leadership" who usually can be found standing behind Minority Leader Sen. Mitch (Glitch) McConnell, R-Ky., looking stern — wanted federal agencies to either make employees show up for work or get rid of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of empty office space.
To show she meant business, Ernst sent letters to a couple of dozen agencies demanding answers and then, while her letters were being ignored, voted for the continuing resolution to fund all the agencies ignoring her.
Ernst had best alert her staff to scrounge up some more envelopes, because here is another outrage right up her alley.
The Washington Times again, "The federal government spent billions furnishing agency offices during the pandemic despite most buildings sitting nearly empty as employees worked from home, according to a report released Tuesday.
"From 2020 through 2022, Open the Books identified that eight departments shelled out a total of $3.3 billion for furniture even as most of them used just a fraction of their office spaces."
Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO of Open the Books, summed the situation up nicely: "In the case of office furniture, most federal headquarters are barely a quarter full on a given workday, and no major agency is at more than half capacity.
"Yet for some reason, we’ve bankrolled another billion dollars in desks, chairs, couches and more — while employees clock in from their own living rooms."
Specifically, he points out the Department of Defense spent $1.2 billion with 23% office usage — which may explain the Afghan skedaddle — Veterans Affairs spent $428 million with 16% office usage, Department of Justice spent $408 million with 35% office usage and the General Services Administration (GSA) spent $308 million with 9% office usage.
What Andrzejewski and possibly Ernst don’t understand is there are absolutely no incentives for federal employees (we use the term loosely) to spend less than their budget.
We are reminded of a satirical song by Tom Lehrer involving former Nazi rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun:
"Don't say that he's hypocritical,
"Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up,
"Who cares where they come down?
"That's not my department,
"Says Wernher von Braun."
And that’s how it is with the furniture acquisition department.
Whether or not the furniture is used is irrelevant.
It’s not their department.
Their priority is spending all the money put in the budget for furniture.
If they spend less, the dept. will get less money the next year and the furniture acquisition empire will get smaller, which is not how a fed becomes popular with his fellow "workers."
They way to change the incentives is to start firing people for incompetence or waste.
But that’s not going to happen either because the federal employee is the leftist’s base.
As long as they vote Democratic and donate Democratic their jobs are safe.
One solution would be to end the tyranny of federal employee unions and replace fired leftistwith-adherents newly hired conservatives.
That doesn’t expand government and it rewards indhividuals who would support our policies in the future.
Or, with a change of management in the White House, these bloated agencies could be abolished or severely downsized. That reduces the size of government, stops rewarding left-adherents and saves taxpayer dollars.
Finally, Congress could try giving these bloated federal agencies less to spend by cutting the baseline budget and not the rate of increase.
That would mean less money to waste and fewer federal employees to do it.
We don't honestly believe that any of these wise suggestions will be implemented.
Doing even the least disruptive of the options would require action by a majority of Republicans with courage and courage has been in short supply for the last 50 years.
What voters receive instead is Joni Ernst and her penpal campaign.
(A related article may be found here.)
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.