Americans expect the government to be honest stewards of their tax dollars. They also expect to be disappointed. For too long, they have witnessed government bureaucracy waste taxpayer dollars only to be told that it was a mistake that would never happen again.
From the infamous $600 toilet seat paid for by the Pentagon to the $200 billion stolen from COVID relief funds, Americans have become used to the waste, fraud, and abuse that now seems inherent in our government.
What is genuinely objectionable, however, is when the government adopts a policy knowing it will waste their money. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Biden administration now seems poised to do.
Most American workers understand that if they fail to show up to work or are ineffective, they can be fired at will. It is not pretty and can undoubtedly create hardships, but it is reality — that is, unless you work for the government.
While President Trump enacted an executive order allowing more federal workers to be fired at will, President Biden recently overturned that executive order. The New York Times called it “Trump-proofing” the federal workforce.
This is highly irresponsible. The federal workforce is already so bloated. Rather than continue to expand the federal workforce, the private sector should be taking a more significant role.
Take, for example, the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM). Most consider it to be the epicenter of the federal government because it “manages the civil service of the federal government, coordinates recruiting of new government employees, and manages their health insurance and retirement benefits programs.”
Although OPM already oversees more than two million federal employees, in their view, it isn’t enough. The Office recently intimidated that it plans to federalize more of the workforce, minimizing the private sector's role.
This is precisely what America does not need. It took over 200 years for the nation to accumulate $1 trillion in debt, but it has taken just 36 years to add $32 trillion more. It continues to compound at an unsustainable rate with no end in sight, and that’s in large part thanks to offices and agencies like OPM.
For one, this year, the Government Accountability Office found that OPM costs taxpayers upwards $1 billion per year by awarding health benefits to ineligible participants. And to add further fuel to the fire, this federal, nonpartisan watchdog agency found “OPM does not plan to establish a monitoring mechanism to identify and remove ineligible family members” — a move that GAO fears will allow related improper payments to continue accruing over time.
Yet, the OPM is pushing to get bigger, not smaller. On what planet does this make sense?
For another, OPM continues to face massive security breaches, including a 2015 one that was considered the biggest data security breach in history at the time. The breach targeted personnel records and impacted over 21 million Americans.
Given that the private sector companies the government contracts with to perform the same services as OPM have impeccable data security track records, why is OPM’s expansion ploy even being considered?
Well, bureaucrats and politicians love power. They can never seem to let it go.
Few have the intestinal fortitude to address the pending crisis. Many on the right refuse to cut a dollar in defense spending. Those on the left refuse to cut a penny of social spending. This is a deadly combination that imperils our fiscal future.
Policymakers should seek to privatize services rather than push out the private sector like OPM wants. That will ensure that the American people get the services they need and deserve while saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. It makes no sense to seek to grow the federal government as a policy initiative. It is large enough.
House Republicans recently replaced their speaker, partly because some members believed leadership was not addressing the spending issue. New Speaker Mike Johnson has a reputation as a budget hawk. It remains to be seen what he can do to turn the ship around. Getting the federal bureaucracy’s epicenter to change its attitude toward the private sector would be an excellent place to start.