A Season for Swamp Draining The new House seeks to restrain federal bureaucrats. Do we dare to dream? James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-season-for-swamp-draining-21cf59f5?mod=opinion_lead_pos11
Two weeks ago this column shared the cheery news that the 118th Congress had so far managed to avoid doing anything of consequence to us. The lucky streak continues and this welcome respite from the misguided frenzy of Biden lawmaking could be just the start. Now some taxpayers are beginning to dream that Beltway lawmakers might be able to achieve even less than nothing—an actual reduction in the burdens Washington imposes on the citizenry.
Lisa Rein and Jacqueline Alemany report for the Washington Post:
At a House hearing this month on fraud and waste in pandemic aid, some Republicans zeroed in on one group in particular for criticism: the federal employees overseeing the money.
“Fire people if they don’t do things they’re supposed to do,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said. “That is our biggest problem in the federal government. Nobody can be held accountable.”
That sentiment is animating a newly empowered GOP House majority eager to ramp up scrutiny of the army of civil servants who run the government’s day-to-day operations. The effort includes seeking testimony from middle- and lower-level workers who are part of what Republicans have long derided as the “deep state,” while some lawmakers are drafting bills that have little chance of passing the Democrat-led Senate but give Republicans a chance to argue for reining in the federal bureaucracy of 2.1 million employees.
Why not take the chance, especially given the surging cost of maintaining this vast unproductive enterprise? The Post report continues:
…House Republican leaders have told almost all of their committees to come up with plans by March to slash spending and beef up oversight of federal agencies in their jurisdiction.
Unions and others who advocate for federal workers are bracing for still more friction, including proposals to reduce or eliminate cost-of-living adjustments to wages and shave the government’s share of health insurance premiums or retirement benefits. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) introduced legislation in January to transform the entire civil service to at-will jobs with scant protections.
As undeserving of generous benefits as many bureaucrats may be, it seems that some of the benefits have been going to people who aren’t bureaucrats and may not even be related to bureaucrats. The Posties report:
One of [Rep. James Comer’s] first letters to the Biden administration after taking over as chairman of the House Oversight panel went to Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja, citing a Government Accountability Office audit that revealed that the government is spending up to $1 billion per year on health benefits for ineligible federal employees.
Not that anyone’s been doing much about it. Recently the GAO reported:
[The Office of Personnel Management] acknowledged in discussions with GAO that not verifying eligibility for current members carries a risk of fraud and improper payments. OPM’s Office of the Inspector General has also documented instances of fraud and improper payments associated with ineligible members in the [Federal Employees Health Benefits] program. For example, a federal employee fraudulently covered two individuals purported to be his wife and stepchild in the FEHB program. The individuals were ineligible and remained on FEHB health insurance for about 12 years. The FEHB program paid claims totaling more than $100,000 on behalf of these ineligible individuals.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know how many such cases exist in a federal system covering more than eight million people?
The Post account also quotes Rep. Gerald Connolly (D., Va.) warning that Republican efforts could discourage people from government work just as many federal employees are heading toward retirement. To many taxpayers this will sound like perfect timing.
Speaking of the vast unproductive enterprise that is the federal bureaucracy, the Post also reports that “House Republicans have passed legislation requiring federal employees to return to the office, arguing that pandemic rules have bled into a permanent state that diminishes productivity.”
House Republicans may have erred on this one, considering the costs a productive government rule writer can impose on people outside of government. Wayne Crews reminds in Forbes:
Administrative agencies rather than the elected Congress do the bulk of U.S. lawmaking despite the strictures of Article I of the Constitution — at least in terms of the numbers of rules vs. laws.
There are a few dozen laws enacted every year by Congress. But cabinet departments and uncountable agencies and commissions issue over 3,000 rules and regulations every year (apart from a Trump-era dip below that level)…
Congress… delegates extraordinary lawmaking powers to agencies and then fails to closely supervise them. The bind we’re in brings to mind James Madison’s warning in The Federalist (No. 51): “[T]he great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
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