Draining the Swamp

     President Trump and the courts are starting to drain the swamp. Federal bureaucrats, numbering 2.1 million, constitute the swamp, which is also called the deep state. The President has direct authority over just 2 percent of these bureaucrats. Until a recent decision by the Supreme Court, some of them, unconfirmed by the Senate, interpreted and enforced laws and regulations, sometimes imposing serious penalties.

A Department of Education “guidance letter” stripped male college students of due process when accused of sexual misconduct. Mr. Trump has repealed this letter.  

Until recently, it took six to twelve months to remove a poor-performing bureaucrat and another eight months to resolve appeals, with the individual being paid all along. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 470 employees, including doctors and nurses, spend all their working time on union activities. Some have spent so little time treating patients that they’ve lost their certification and can no longer see the patients. Yet they continue being paid as professionals. President Trump has partially corrected these abuses.

More civil servants die on the job than are terminated or demoted. The fastest way for a bureaucracy to remove itself is to solve problems. They try to avoid this.

Including benefits, the average private-sector worker in 2016 earned $69,901. The average federal worker earned $123,160 – 76 percent higher. Controlling the lives of others must be tough work.

The deep state has been growing in size and power for over a century. Fortunately, a reversal has begun.