One of the few reasons to not mourn the death of Elvis Presley
is that the General Services Administration’s event planners would
probably have hired him to sing at their October 2010 “conference”
at the ritzy-glitzy M Resort
Spa Casino in Las Vegas. Instead, they had to settle for a
song
celebrating government waste by one of their own.
According to the April 2
report by the GSA’s Inspector General, the “conference” cost
$822,751. So, for a mere $2,742 per person in taxpayers’ money, the
GSA event featured essential government functions such as a $75,000
team-building session in which attendees were challenged to build a
bicycle, a session with an entertainer-mind reader ($3,200), almost
$150,000 in food expenses as well as paying for clothing and tuxedo
rentals for GSA employees,
GSA’s Public Building Service responsible, as its name implies,
for managing federal buildings held the meeting. As the IG report
says, “The PBS Region 9 Commissioner/Acting Administrator [Jeffrey
Neely] instructed those planning the conference to make it ‘over
the top’ and to make it bigger and better than previous
conferences.” His orders were followed and it was Neely who
approved the expenses.
The IG report resulted in the resignation of the GSA
administrator, the firing of a couple of lower-ranking people who
had been in the chain of command. But not Neely. He received a
$9,000 bonus, apparently for good performance over the year. He has
been removed from his job but not fired. More disciplinary action,
we are promised, will be forthcoming.
Much more importantly, the IG report opened the lid on the civil
service sewer that has been coddled, cuddled, and embraced by the
Obama administration like no administration before it. The
Obama-enhanced culture of the federal civil service — not just GSA
— is that federal agencies have become used to do in their role as
our governing class.
According to a January Congressional Budget Office report, federal civil
servants are paid better than their counterparts in the private
sector. CBO found that because the bureaucrats are given huge
benefits (generous retirement and healthcare among them) their
total compensation averages 36 percent higher than in the private
sector for those with no more than a high school education, 15
percent higher for those with a college degree, and 18 percent
lower for those with post-graduate degrees.
As of September 2011, there were about 1.8 million civilians on
the federal payroll. Of those, about 420,000 earn a base salary of
over $100,000 and can be granted bonuses in addition to their base
salaries. According to an ABC
report, a federal employee is more likely to die than be fired.
Eliot Ness’s “Untouchables” were more vulnerable than the average
federal civil servant.
It’s not only that most of these people are overpaid and
underworked. It’s that their culture of arrogant exercise of their
powers has been turned loose by Obama’s agenda and the Obama
administration’s leaders at the top of the bureaucracy who are
directing and controlling those under them.
How else to explain “Fast and Furious,” the infamous gun-walking
operation that cost the life of Border Patrolman Brian Terry? Or
EPA’s decision that it had the power — not granted by law — to
regulate carbon dioxide? Or the FCC’s incursions into controlling
the Internet? Or rushing a loan to now-bankrupt Solyndra in pursuit
of Obama’s “renewable energy” policy while permits for offshore oil
and gas drilling are arbitrarily delayed and denied?
Or, for that matter, TSA’s continued abuse of travelers and
their expansion of random search operations to trains and buses?
Our personal freedom shrinks as they expand.
The federal bureaucracy has been turned loose, and like any
group having the power to abuse its power, it does so encouraged
directly and indirectly by the Obama administration.
President Obama has promised to go around Congress to govern as
he sees fit throughout his term. All the good that congressional
investigators such as House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Darryl Issa (R-Cal) is pursuing will have little
or no effect. On matters such as “Fast and Furious” subpoenas,
Attorney General Holder is simply stonewalling. Issa can expect
more of that, and not just on “Fast and Furious.”
Obama will protect the bureaucracy that is his willing
instrument of governance, and those who infest the federal agencies
as permanent employees will be carrying out his will even if a
Republican replaces Obama in November.
Why? Because the bureaucrats have become used to it, and it
pleases them. The more power they are granted, the more they will
use and abuse it until someone stops them. Which is inordinately
hard to do for one very big reason.
Every corner of the bureaucracy has a constituency on Capitol
Hill with which it communicates directly regardless of the wishes
of its political bosses. I saw it twenty years ago when I served in
the Pentagon. A direct order to a military person begins action.
One to a bureaucrat is the beginning of a debate and frequently the
answer to a question comes in the form of more questions in a
letter from congressional staffers asking for a justification of
the question.
The solution isn’t simple and requires a dedication to action
for which most political appointees do not think they have the
time. The bureaucracy will do its best to keep them so busy they
don’t have the time to even think about it. I learned early on that
meetings should not be attended unless I, my boss, or his boss
called them. If I hadn’t done that, I’d have been trapped in
pointless meetings from the morning moment I arrived in the
building to the minute I dragged myself out in the evening.
But there’s more, and something just as important. If I had it
to do over, I’d have revamped my staff to dispense with all but
four of my staff: my indispensable secretary and three who I might
have called my Bronx people. They would have been my
“implementers.” Their sole job would be to ride herd on the
bureaucrats, identifying and blasting roadblocks instantly with all
the power of my office behind them. Three retired special
operations men I know come to mind. They have the brains, tenacity,
loyalty, and the ability to get things done that I admire, and that
every political appointee needs.
For all of those who hope to serve in a Republican
administration next year, please take heed. It’s not the
president’s policies you’ll have to worry about so much as the
people under you who are comprehensively committed to delay and
obfuscation. Don’t try to change the bureaucrats’ minds or
attitudes because you can’t. They know they will be there long
after you’re gone.
Think instead about who your arm-twisters will be, and if you
hire them — no matter what agency you may end up in — you will
not only serve your president well. You may actually get something
done.
