How Federal Workers Became Obama’s Private Army

How Federal Workers Became Obama’s Private Army
EDWARD MORRISSEYThe Fiscal Times

HOPEY-CHANGEY: How Federal Workers Became Obama’s Private Army. “Seventy-four years later, the civil-service system has been exposed as a failure – at least in this administration. Instead of an independent workforce of professionals who implement federal regulation in an even-handed and competent manner, we have returned to the era of partisan retribution and politically-motivated malevolence. . . . It’s part of a disturbing pattern emerging in the second term of Barack Obama. When law enforcement and tax enforcement become rankly political, Americans can no longer trust in their federal government, even when it’s not shut down – and that won’t stop after Obama leaves office, either. We are getting a clear lesson on the risks of larger government and regulatory overreach, and those risks go far beyond incompetence.” It’s also disturbing how little pushback there has been from the supposedly nonpartisan civil service — which, of course, is composed overwhelmingly of Democrats.

As I’ve suggested before, a return to the “spoils system” would be more honest — and politicians might be less willing to grant so much power to the government if they knew that sooner or later it would be in the hands of their political enemies. It would also mean, of course, that a government job would no longer be a lifelong proposition — but that might not be a bug, but a feature, too.