________
Source: Epoch Times
Biden Admin Installs New Rule Making It Harder to Fire Bureaucrats
A new rule adopted by the Office of Personnel Management boosts protections for government employees, making it harder to fire them.
President Joe Biden addresses the Baltimore bridge collapse in the Roosevelt Room
of the White House on March 26, 2024. (Pedro Ugarte/AFP via Getty Images)
By Tom Ozimek | April 4, 2024
The Biden administration has issued a new rule that makes it harder to fire government employees in an apparent bid to thwart former President Donald Trump's pledge to fire "rogue bureaucrats" and radically reshape the federal workforce.
The new rule, which bolsters job protections for career civil servants, was issued on April 4 by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which hinted in a statement that it's targeting a promised move by a potential second Trump presidency to "drain the swamp and root out the deep state" by making it easier to fire government workers.
"In the first week of the Biden-Harris Administration, President Biden revoked an Executive Order issued by the previous Administration that risked altering our country's long-standing merit-based civil service system, by creating new excepted service schedule, known as 'Schedule F,' and directing agencies to move potentially large swathes of career employees into this new excepted service status," OPM said in the statement.
This is in reference to a Trump-era executive order issued in 2020 that allowed tens of thousands of the 2.2 million federal employees to be reclassified as political appointees, making it easier to fire them.
'Root Out the Deep State'
Roughly 4,000 federal employees are now considered political appointees, who typically change with each administration, with the revival of a Schedule F potentially increasing that more than tenfold.
President Joe Biden nixed the Schedule F order when he took office, while President Trump said in mid-2022 that he would try to revive the concept in one form or another.
"We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy or at a minimum just want to keep their jobs," President Trump said in a speech at the America First Policy Institute on July 26, 2022, promising to "drain the swamp and root out the deep state."
The former president went further in his speech, calling on Congress to pass laws that would give the commander-in-chief the authority to fire any government employee basically at will.
"Congress should pass historic reforms empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent, or unnecessary for the job can be told 'you are fired, get out,'" he said, adding that, after such reforms, Washington would be an "entirely different place."
Later on the campaign trail, President Trump repeatedly hinted at his intention to make good on this promise. His remarks dovetail with a long-standing desire on the part of many Republicans to prune what they say is a bloated, inefficient and, in many cases, counterproductive federal bureaucracy.
Many Democrats, on the other hand, see the potential revival of a Schedule F or similar initiative as a threat to the operations of government and a potential disruption to the provision of critical services.
"This final rule honors our 2.2 million career civil servants, helping ensure that people are hired and fired based on merit and that they can carry out their duties based on their expertise and not political loyalty," OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said in a statement.
"The Biden-Harris Administration is deeply committed to the federal workforce, as these professionals are vital to our national security, our health, our economic prosperity, and much more."
Please go to Epoch Times to continue reading.
________
More:
Learn more about Executive Orders signed by the US corporation:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.