The federal bureaucracy is “a mortal threat to America”
From Stephen Miller, who is a senior adviser for policy to Trump:
n 2016, President Trump ran against Washington’s “deep state” and “permanent bureaucracy,” said Miller, and they remain so angry that they are lying, leaking, and attacking the administration’s agenda.
The latest example is the planned book written by an anonymous inside critic and that follows efforts by bureaucrats to thwart Trump policies with leaks to liberal media and Democrats on Capitol Hill.
In an interview, Miller called inside attacks a “very grave threat,” and he explained it this way:
“It is best understood as career federal employees that believe they are under no obligation to honor, respect, or abide by the results of a democratic election. Their view is, ‘If I agree with what voters choose, then I’ll do what they choose. If I disagree with what voters choose, then I won’t, and I’ll continue doing my own thing. So basically it’s heads I win, tails you lose.
“‘If you elect Hillary Clinton, then I’ll implement all of her policies very faithfully, and if I see massive evidence of corruption on Hillary Clinton’s part, then I’ll keep it all a secret. If you elect a candidate I disagree with, then I’ll lie, I’ll leak, I’ll cheat, I’ll smear, I’ll attack, I’ll persecute, and I will refuse to implement, and I will obstruct at every single step of the way.’”
I also recall that the reason “the plumbers” were called that during the Nixon administration was that their goal was to plug leaks:
The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, the “Room 16 Project,” or more officially, the White House “Special Investigations Unit” was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established within a week after the publication of the “Pentagon Papers” in June 1971, during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its task was to stop and/or respond to the leaking of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers, to the news media. The work of the unit “tapered-off” after the bungled “Ellsberg break-in” but some of its former operatives branched into illegal activities while still employed at the White House together with managers of the Committee to Re-elect the President, including the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal.
It’s not really a new phenomenon, although it appears to have escalated in recent years and especially against Trump.
Note, we had from 2003 to 2007 and from 2017 to 2019 a Republican president and Congress. Efforts to reform the civil service law, shut down federal agencies, or re-organize the tapestry of federal agencies were just about nil. The Republican congressional caucus has been a study in failure theatre for two generations.
The “deep state conspiracy theory is for nut cases” – Steve Bannon
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/03/trump-steve-bannon-deep-state-conspiracy-theory
Bronze Age Pervert, The American Mind (responding to Michael Anton’s review of BAP’s book “Bronze Age Mindset”,): America’s Delusional Elite Is Done.
Art Deco is spot on!
The “deep state conspiracy theory is for nut cases” – Steve Bannon
Which he followed up with ‘there’s nothing deep about it. It’s right in your face’. We know the names of the principals.
Do they pay you extra for being brazenly dishonest?
Every previous Republican “Reform” was so watered-down as to have made the effort nearly useless. How many times has an Republican Administration tried to simplify the Tax Code? All they succeeded in doing was to add some additional loopholes and more complexity. What is the one thing that Trump hasn’t even come close to achieving? Tax reform.
All they succeeded in doing was to add some additional loopholes and more complexity.
No, the 1986 bill sheared away some of the special preferences, reduced the number of brackets, and reduced marginal rates.
Do they pay you extra for being brazenly dishonest?</i
My question, too. Does manju speak Mandarin ?
Laying off 50,000 federal employees would a good start. Just like a bus with 50 lawyers going off a cliff.
Art Deco: When you’re on, you’re on!
For all of its issues, there was accountability with the Spoils System. Bring it back! Yes, really.
Art Deco,
Conceded, though I was thinking, of ‘since Reagan’. Though, I would argue that even that was not a fundamental reform of the magnitude needed.
Boy, you lose focus for a minute …
I forgot the Pelosi non-impeachment impeachment is now going on behind closed doors.
It’s not quite a federal bureaucracy problem, but as far as I’m concerned, Pelosi’s procedural guerrilla tactics are part and parcel of the Deep State #Resistance!.
I recall from back in the post-2016 election period when thn new cabinet members were being picked and interviewed one of the “career diplomats” (who wished to remain anonymous, of course) told the reporter that they referred to the new department heads as the “Christmas help”, referring to the revolving door of them versus the ongoing, 20, 30 years on the job, rank and file people.
I’ve seen nothing to negate this concept.
For all of its issues, there was accountability with the Spoils System. Bring it back! Yes, really.
Mike Smith: And the Smoke-Filled Rooms! Bring them back.
Democrats meant well, but unless they really mean to nominate the most left-wing candidates every time — and usually lose — they might reconsider.
However, are Smoke-Filled Rooms even legal anymore? Sigh.
Think of all the classic B&W films from the 30s-50s which depended on Smoke-Filled Rooms.
Humphrey Bogart could never have been a matinee idol without an endless cigarette perched loosely from his lower lip.
For me the problem started or maybe accelerated with 9/11. No one was fired or resigned. Zero accountability. On the heels of that FBI disaster came the “weapons of mass destruction” disaster – courtesy of the CIA. Again zero accountability. No wonder the CIA and FBI and every other governmental agency thought they were untouchable. They obviously were. I’ve often wondered if Bush wasn’t bullied/threatened the way Trump was when Comey brought up the Steele dossier.
The federal corrupt bureaucracy dates back to the 19th century, or perhaps earlier. The ‘deep state’ as we know it began with Teddy boy and became weaponized under Wilson. It has put it’s tenacles ever deeper into general society, aided and encouraged by judicial meddling.
Now we have in Texas of all places, where a judge granted a deranged mother to decide her son at age 7 must be forcefully turned into a girl, which is impossible no matter how many chemicals or surgical manipulations are used. When XY can magically become XX you know common sense norms have been hijacked. This is a boundry we can not surrender. I don’t want my grandchildern to live in a society where logic and proportion have been sacrificed on the alter of crazy.
Sooner or later blood must be spilled. The enemy within must be made to unconditionally surrender.
Weren’t most of us among those who thought:
we might never live to see the day when somebody would have the audacity to promise to fundamentally change a broken status quo then get to Washington and proceed to execute on every single thing that he promised to do no matter what was thrown his way. It is truly a miracle to behold.
I truly didn’t realize HOW broken it was, but the world is in far worse shape than I thought, with respect to indoctrinated elites who fail at their missions. The fact is that the world is in great shape, the best it’s ever been in, with respect to poverty reduction and world peace. Those two contrary facts, great shape – terrible shape, makes it easy for the incompetent elite to stay in power.
We need gov’t employment term limits. After 10 years, no more pay increases. After 12 years, a 10% reduction in pay every year. Until they resign.
We need more, far more civil service turnover and selection, with one criteria being “previous taxes paid”. (“Taxes” from gov’t salary shouldn’t count, since the gov’t salary comes from taxes.) Between two roughly equal candidates, the one who has paid more in taxes should be hired first. This is also a good way to hire more older folk, since they’ve been paying taxes longer. We also need more real-world experience in the gov’t.
“…followed up…”
A truly excellent catch.
That’s quite an “unforced error”! A real credibility shredder—if one were at all able to shred already-shredded cred….
(Though if one—say, a public defender assigned by the state—were inclined to give the benefit of the doubt for this entertaining bumbling, one might protest that instead of having cleverly, cunningly, venally initiating an outrageously selective quote—a specialty, it must be said, of “La Resistencia”—it’s probably JUST a talking point from “the mother ship” that’s been—innocently(!)—copied and pasted and making the rounds.)
Some advice for next time: instead of merely copying and pasting from your “reliable” sources, check and check again. Remember: “Google is your friend”….
Thanks sdferr for the link Bronze Age Pervert, The American Mind (responding to Michael Anton’s review of BAP’s book “Bronze Age Mindset”,): America’s Delusional Elite Is Done. https://americanmind.org/essays/americas-delusional-elite-is-done/ Long but worth reading. Just bought Bronze Age Mindset.
You never know where an encounter with neo and her minions will lead.
I had never heard of Hamilton 68. Now I have, the John Birch Society of the woke age. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-68-a-new-tool-to-track-russian-disinformation-on-twitter/
For me the problem started or maybe accelerated with 9/11. No one was fired or resigned. Zero accountability.
No, but it accelerated. Read David Brinkley’s book, “Washington Goes to War” The bureaucracy had been fed by Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” but it really grew in WWII. We were lucky to win that one. We would not win it now.
We need gov’t employment term limits. After 10 years, no more pay increases. After 12 years, a 10% reduction in pay every year. Until they resign.
Why not try this:
1. With few exceptions, recruitment and promotion are to be regulated by the administration of timely civil service examinations. No more ‘diversity’ ‘goals’ and ‘timetables’ and no more gutting the examinations so anyone can pass them. A supervisor can make a selection, subject to the review of his manager, from the top three performers on the examination. Certain categories of employee (uniformed police, firefighters, &c) would have to pass fitness tests in addition to said examinations, which tests would be pass / fail. For protective service personnel, you might have a modification of the above derived from military practice.
2. The exception to the above (leaving aside the military) would be ‘guild hires’, where it’s permissible to make discretionary hires from guild pools which the prospects entered via competitive examinations. You’d do this for confidential secretaries and law clerks and certain licensed professionals (lawyers, pathologists, other physicians, perhaps accountants, &c).
3. The disciplinary system for civilian employees would be as follows:
a. For patronage employees and senior executives, termination at will, exercised according to procedures delineated by executive order. The executive order would indicate to whom among the employees superordinate the decision to terminate would be allocated and whether clearance would have to be received via the White House patronage office.
b. For confidential employees: termination at will to be exercised by their immediate supervisor only. If superordinate managers want to can a particular confidential employee, they’d have to can said employee’s supervisor and the employee in one order.
c. For civil servants (whether they be examination hires or guild hires): termination to be effected by an order countersigned by three persons in the employee’s chain-of-command. The employee hits the bricks that day. However, the employee can seek a post-termination hearing (with the aid of counsel provided by her union) in front of a panel of assessors drawn from an ombudsman’s corps and present evidence that s/he was terminated for one of a half dozen impermissible reasons (retaliation, affiliations, &c). Should the panel find probable cause, s/he could present her case in front of a second panel which would decide the case according to a preponderance of the evidence. Should she lose, tough. Should s/he win, s/he’s indemnified generously and can sit for examinations for a new position. The matter is then referred for review to a different ombudsman’s corps. That corps can (but is not compelled to) bring charges against the crew who fired her in front of a different panel. If that crew lose, they are terminated and debarred from federal employment for six years. They can appeal to a federal appellate court, but what a successful appeal gets them is not their job back but rather an indemnity and a clearance to hold a federal position again. Again, something approaching termination at will is practiced. The point is to maintain professionalism by the process of filling positions, not by giving employees tenure. “You just don’t fit in” is a satisfactory reason in most circumstances.
d. In re, protective service personnel, you might attempt a modification of the above, derived from military practice.
4. Transparent compensation for federal employees. Every employee receives a stated compensation.
a. Medical and long term care insurance for the employee and his dependents would be financed by an assessment on his stated compensation – a % as a rule, but not to fall below a certain minimum dollar value nor exceed a maximum. The minimum and maximum would be calculated annually as a function of the mean compensation per worker in the economy at large.
i. Federal employees, their dependents, and eligible retirees would be randomly assigned to cohorts. The assessments on them would constitute a premium kitty. Triennially, the federal government would accept sealed bids from insurance companies who would receive the kitty each year and in turn insure that cohort according to a standard contract. The bids would be in the form of the deductible the company would insist on for that three year period – $x to insure a single person; $2x to insure a married couple or parent-and-child; and $3x to insure larger (eligible) households (e.g. married couple with children, parent with multiple children &c). Again, the cost to the government is a fixed % of stated compensation. The cost of price shocks in the medical service market would be borne by the employee and the insurer. In re long term care plans, I think they’d have to be limited to vested employees and retirees. Medical plans for those Medicare-eligible would be limited to Medigap plans.
ii. Old-age retirement programs would be limited to defined-contribution plans. A minimum of 15% of stated compensation would be withheld to finance retirement accounts, with more to be added at the employee’s discretion. In re employees accumulating early retirement credits, 30% will have to be with-held. Early retirement credits are collected only by military, uniformed police, firefighters, and construction workers. The accounts are locked until the employee is Medicare eligible.
b. Short-term disability, l/t disability, and care-giver’s insurance would be financed by a % assessment on each employee’s stated compensation. The benefit would be in the form of an annuity that could be granted by an administrative hearing examiner. Again, three year contracts to insure would be let out through sealed bidding. The bid would be in the form of the % of the employee’s earned income the insurer will replace in the event of a disability, with the high bid winning. The employee’s ‘earned income’ would be calculated by applying a price index to his nominal stated compensation during each year he was employed and then taking the median value of this set of data points.
NB employee take-home pay would be the residue after with-holding for federal income taxes, state income taxes, Social Security taxes, other payroll taxes, and all of the foregoing with-holdings.
c. Stated compensation per worker in the federal service would be limited by law to no more than 130% of mean nominal compensation per private sector worker in the economy at large. Compensation for a particular federal employee could not exceed the 96th percentile of nominal compensation per worker in the private sector economy unless the employee received a specific increment granted him by a concurrent resolution of Congress or a formal presidential finding made consequent to a public hearing.
5. An end to collective bargaining for federal employees. In this scenario, unions would be voluntary mutual aid societies which would operate credit unions and insurance plans and keep labor lawyers on retainer.
6. Again, an end to early retirement for federal employees bar those is the categories mentioned. You go out between 62 and 67 like a private sector employee, unless you receive a disability adjudication. However, there would also be mandatory retirement for those who had reached the age of 67 and had accumulated a certain number of years (say, 35 years) in federal service (pro-rating for years of part-time and seasonal work). Employees over the standard retirement age would be subject to annual assessments of physical fitness and mental acuity and retired if they failed (w / o regard to their service history).
I recommend reading that Michael Anton book review and the response from the author, “Bronze Age Pervert.” The links are above at 7:59.
My son tells me my grandson, now in high school, and his friends are all far more conservative than he remembers his friends being. All the kids went to charter schools although they are public high school. Private schools have gotten hideously expensive and , he tells me, that the private school his sisters went to is now rife with drugs and the kids have rich parents who have no control or family life.
Maybe we are about to see a boys’ revolt.
“Maybe we are about to see a boys’ revolt.”
It’s my impression that BAP is asserting such a revolt is already here, though not wholly visible to those of us who do not frequent the online or other precincts in which the young people rising spend their time communicating. Now he may be right about that, or wrong, I don’t know. But I do think that’s what he’s saying.
I think the Ottomans may have been worse. The secret police in most Soviet Bloc countries had a fallback plan to keep power by shapeshifting after a revolution. Some of those worked.
I’m trying to think of other examples that exceed us.
sdferr:
Thanks for that link ( at 6:51PM yesterday) to the Bronze Age Pervert at The American Mind (responding to Michael Anton’s review of BAP’s book “Bronze Age Mindset”,): America’s Delusional Elite Is Done.
You can indeed learn a lot around here. I’m afraid this guy might be on to something, might have to borrow his book from someone …
Neo writes: “It’s not really a new phenomenon, although it appears to have escalated in recent years and especially against Trump.”
That is a weird ending to your post. Government corruption has been with us ever since the first group of tribal elders got together to decide issues.
What are we to make of it? What are your ideas for dealing with the administrative state? Surrender? Armed civil war? Rely on the courts?
Obviously you cannot solve the problem in a blog post but something beyond a tut-tut it’s been around for a while would be interesting.
Another mortal threat?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ben-carson-warns-political-correctness-will-destroy-us
Obviously you cannot solve the problem in a blog post but something beyond a tut-tut it’s been around for a while would be interesting.
“les aristocrates à la lanterne!” could be slightly modified to “Les bureaucratie a la lanterne!”
Bob:
I’m sure that would be interesting.
In fact, five 2000-plus-word in-depth articles a day, fully exploring each subject, would indeed be interesting. And since this is a one-person blog, that would probably take me the entire 24 hours in each day and then some.
I post tons of in-depth explorations of things, as my regular readers are well aware. Sometimes, though, I am mostly directing readers to an article I find worth reading, with some quotes and just a few remarks from me. This was one of those posts, as I think is rather obvious.
Have you ever heard the expression for bloggers that divides them into “linkers” and “thinkers”? In general, my posts tend more towards the latter. But a certain not-insignificant percentage of my posts are of the “linker” variety. Many times they act as a springboard for observations from commenters here that expand on the thoughts expressed by me or in the linked article.
Lee Smith has a FANTASTIC note on 10 questions about Trump and Kurds. Very clear about who different Kurd factions are, and who their local big power patrons are. A must read for any who commented on Trump’s withdrawal of troops.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/24/10-questions-to-ask-about-trumps-removal-of-troops-from-syria/
The BIGGEST bureaucracy is … the Dept of War, renamed “Defense” to be less honest and more PC.
The Defense Department fought withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Syria because the anti-ISIS campaign helps feed the Beltway—the defense industry and the various other agencies, contractors, and nongovernmental organizations whose missions are shaped by an open-ended campaign abroad to fight Sunni Arab irregulars—that is, ISIS and anyone Iran and its proxies designate as ISIS.
The war profiteers actually DO, in fact, want Endless War. And there are LOTS of Reps, along with Dems, who profit handsomely from the military-industrial complex.
Since Lee agrees with my earlier guesses, he must be a genius!
The BIGGEST bureaucracy is … the Dept of War, renamed “Defense” to be less honest and more PC.
So what? The military is an inherently public function and one inherently located in the central government. As we speak, about 1% of the working population is in uniform and the ratio of military spending to domestic product is now as low as it has been since 1940. It’s the one form of federal spending wherein propensity to spend is actually responsive to external circumstances.
You want to rename it ‘Department of the Armed Services’ that’s a fine idea. Remind people that our military goes on the offense.
You have an objection to federal programs, you’ve got lots to choose from. The entire grants-and-subsidies patronage mill – for business concerns, for philanthropies; for higher education, public and private; and for state and local governments – is one set. Welfare programs of dubious validity (e.g. SNAP, miscellaneous nutrition programs, utility subsidies, public housing, section 8, TANF, the Administration on Aging, &c) are another. A simple revenue sharing program for state and territorial government and an amended EITC could replace these. While we’re at it, we might get out of the venture capital and credit provision business. (That’s the Farm Credit System, the Energy department lending portfolio, the mortgage maws, the ExIm Bank, certain veterans’ programs &c). We might start to sell off our large inventory of grazing land and timberland, as well as the Postal Service.
Roy Nathanson – 10/23/19 8:13 pm — Here’s an old tax lawyer joke (Yes, Virginia, there are tax lawyer jokes):
The President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary of the Treasury go to the National Cathedral to pray. The President prays, “Oh, Lord, will there ever be an end to war and violence in this world?”
A Heavenly Voice answers, “Yes, my son, it will happen, but not in your lifetime.”
Next, the Vice-President prays, “Oh, Lord, will there ever be an end to hunger and poverty in this world?”
A Heavenly Voice answers, “Yes, my son, it will happen, but not in your lifetime.”
Then the Secretary of the Treasury prays: “Oh, Lord, will there ever be real tax reform in this world?”
A Heavenly Voice answers, “Yes, my son, it will happen, but not in My lifetime.”
The federal bureacracy occupies the same position as the aristocracy that killed off England. A great quote from Corelli Barrett’s book The Swordbearers is that the aristocracy should have been cut off from public life.
The federal bureacracy occupies the same position as the aristocracy that killed off England.
England is very much alive. About 50 million of the world’s affluent people live there. The aristocracy’s still around too, just rather cash poor.
sdferr on October 23, 2019 at 6:51 pm said:
Bronze Age Pervert, The American Mind (responding to Michael Anton’s review of BAP’s book “Bronze Age Mindset”,): America’s Delusional Elite Is Done.
* * *
Two excellent essays; thanks!
The State bureaucracy and that of the multinational corporation share many of the same failings, attributable to the separation of ownership and management in the case of the corporation; and the separation of legislative/executive/judicial power and democracy in the case of the State.
The administrative state was an undemocratic enterprise from it’s inception, an attempt to substitute the judgement and discretion of scientific experts for that of the ignorant electorate; to give the people, not what they stupidly *think* they need but what the credentialed reformer *knows* they need. Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends.
Big business is a creature of the administrative state, created in response to the administrator’s desire to affix a strong leash to a single neck, not to that of millions of small sole proprietors.
Richard Saunders’ joke, above:
LOL :>))!!
The administrative state was an undemocratic enterprise from it’s inception, an attempt to substitute the judgement and discretion of scientific experts for that of the ignorant electorate; to give the people, not what they stupidly *think* they need but what the credentialed reformer *knows* they need. Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends.
Tell us what you plan to unload.
1. Police officers
2. Prosecutors
3. Highway engineers
4. Soldiers
5. Accountants
6. Physicians and surgeons employed at military and veterans hospitals
7. Economists employed at the central bank.
8. State university faculty.
Your response is pretty glib but that’s fine.
As I said, the problem with the administrative state is the concentration of political power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.
So… maybe #7, to the extent the central bankers usurp power from elected officials.
Hey, how bout listing some functionaries that are actually part of the unelected bureaucratic power-elite… like the EPA?
You think civilization will collapse if we take back legislative/executive/judicial power from the unelected snail darter fan club?