Inside Scoop on the Federal Government

It’s often said sunlight is the best disinfectant. I favor a thorough bleaching, but there’s no doubting the value of transparency for keeping a public body in check, especially when  it exercises as awesome a power over our lives as the federal government.

Most Americans know very little about the day-to-day operations of their government besides the obvious facts that: 1) it’s slow, 2) it’s expensive, and 3) it’s getting bigger. And how could they know? The information isn’t exactly gushing from the most transparent administration in history.

So here it is, everything you wanted to know about the inner workings of your typical federal departmental headquarters:

1. For hiring, it’s who you know. Go to the federal hiring portal, USAJOBS.gov, and you get the distinct impression there are oodles of opportunities open for people just like you. There aren’t. Many, if not most, of these postings are promotion opportunities for existing employees or held spots for preselected candidates. Though technically “illegal” to operate this way, the law is completely toothless, and human resource departments have become skilled at keeping up appearances while maintaining plausible deniability in the event of an audit.
2. Everyone makes over $100,000. Okay, not literally everyone, but close. You’ll hear official statistics that place the average figure somewhere high in the $70,000-80,000 range (no small haul in itself, considering median per-capita income in the U.S. was $42,693 in 2012). The figure presumably includes student interns, secretaries, census workers, and the like. But any office worker in an analyst position is implicitly guaranteed to join the six-figure-club by their second decade of service. This is because new hires are placed on a GS-9/11/12 career path, which rockets them from $50k to $75k in two years’ time on the sole condition they maintain acceptable performance ratings (there is a rumor a dead cat qualified in 2011). Then, there is the unspoken understanding of a GS-13 promotion within the next few years, which places them in a salary belt of $90k to $115k, increasing along fixed step raises annually regardless of performance.
3. It’s nearly impossible to find anyone. Between the 2-3 days per week many employees “work” from home (and send messages straight to voicemail), flexible work hours beginning as late as 10 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon, choice of a lunch “hour” between 11am and 2pm, 4 to 8 hours of annual leave per pay period, and flexible work schedules with staggered days off, it is more than likely whomever you are trying to reach is not at their desk or otherwise available. Meetings are often postponed until everyone is in the office, which can take many days or weeks to coordinate. Phone calls and e-mails go unanswered for excruciating periods with no accountability or consequences for the MIA employees.
4. Nobody can be fired, and they know it. Collective bargaining agreements negotiated by federal unions, combined with Constitutional due process rights to public compensation, have weaved over time a procedural tapestry so vast and complex than no manager in his right mind even attempts to remove a tenured employee (full tenure sets in after 3 years). The practical work-arounds managers use instead are transfer, starving the employee of any responsibilities or recognition, or in some cases, even promotion.
5. Politicals exercise very limited control. The agencies largely run themselves through career managers and employees, with top leadership appointed by the White House serving as figureheads for 2-to-4-year terms with little capacity to effect significant change (see #4). Employees near retirement or at the top of their career ladders often refuse to operate on White House timetables or to meaningfully participate in initiatives they find difficult or misguided. Congress maintains oversight of federal regulatory activities on paper via the Congressional Review Act, through which it may invalidate any new agency rule it finds overly burdensome or offensive. This review power has been exercised exactly once in U.S. history. The Secretaries are away from headquarters most of the time at photo opportunities, fundraisers (on non-official time, of course), and conferences, and don’t generally get involved in the regular activities of the departments. So Sebelius really didn’t have the first clue about the botched Obamacare rollout until she read about it in the newspapers the next morning. But live by the sword and die by it; take credit for the achievements of others and you inevitably take credit for their failures as well.

Public Prayer Ruling a Gnat Bite for Liberties in ICU

Whether or not you agree with today’s Supreme Court decision allowing Greece, NY officials to open town meetings with Christian-leaning prayers, the nature of the case itself illustrates how remarkably intact religious liberties remain in America compared with the country’s nearly extinct economic freedoms.

Imagine what the equivalent headline today might have been if control over our income, purchases, and business dealings had been preserved as vigilantly as our right to free religious expression:

“Supreme Court rules Department of Health and Human Services may use website to opine individuals should have health insurance.”

Or

“Supreme Court rules Internal Revenue Service may suggest contributing income to Social Security programs.”

Gazing longingly through the window of the intensive care unit, wouldn’t the gnat bites that come with the cookouts and fishing trips of summer be a wonderful problem to have?

Disability: None Dare Call It Welfare

Spend a morning at any District Court criminal calendar and you’ll hear the following refrain so often you’ll think you’re on the set of a horrible Groundhog Day sequel:

Judge: “Are you currently employed?”

Defendant: “I’m on disability, your honor.”

Don’t pinch yourself – you are stuck with the same uninspired comic-book reboots at the box office again and again and again and again and again. But the unbearable waking nightmare that modern cinema has become is not the topic of this post.

The “disability” the defendants are “on” is a government program called Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). If some of them look like they could bench press you above their heads, it’s because they probably could.

Spoiler Alert: They aren’t actually disabled, at least not in any physical or factual sense of the term. But they are receiving free medical care and a monthly annuity from the federal government, and they will continue to do so on the sole condition that they don’t find gainful employment (I believe this is what many economists call a “misalignment of incentives,” to say the least).

Of course not every individual on SSDI is supplementing a criminal lifestyle or working his or her way through the justice system. Many are otherwise normal (but down on their luck) law-abiding citizens who live out their mundane lives with daytime television, running everyday errands, walking the streets aimlessly, or going to see abysmal superhero movie sequels at preferred daytime cinema rates.

From the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) disability website:

“‘Disability’ under Social Security is based on your inability to work. We consider you disabled under Social Security rules if: 1) You cannot do work that you did before; 2)We decide that you cannot adjust to other work because of your medical condition(s); and 3) Your disability has lasted or is expected to last for at least one year or to result in death.”

On its surface, SSDI seems like the quintessential safety net: citizens pay in over their working lives, and if unlucky enough to suffer some catastrophic physical handicap, society helps them make ends meet. So why has SSDI enrollment exploded to over 11 million people over the past decade – over 5% of eligible, working-age Americans – more than doubling in both real and percentage terms since 1999? When added to the 8 to 9 million people on SSDI’s kissing cousin, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), for low-income disabled individuals, that’s approximately 20 million adults and counting drawing disability (not counting federal, state, and military disability pensions).

Economists  David Autor and Mark Duggan believe the problem started with the Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984, which significantly expanded the eligibility criteria of the program. Thumbing through the SSA’s qualifying list, we find such common, subjective, or impossible-to-verify conditions as joint pain, back pain, anxiety, and depression, which as of 2009, make up more than half of all SSDI claims:

“Pain cases and mental cases are extremely difficult because – and even more so with mental cases – there’s no objective medical evidence,” said Randall Frye, a Social Security administrative law judge in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s all subjective.” (Source)

The certifying doctor is the applicant’s personal doctor, and if the first doctor doesn’t agree, the patient can go on a doctor shopping spree until he finds one that does. To its credit, the SSA rejects somewhere between 60-70% of first-time applications, but attorney-driven appeals of rejections reverse the trend, and by the end of the process, roughly 70% are successful. Unlike criminal and civil trials, there is no government advocate present in such hearings to represent the taxpayer’s interests.

The kicker is SSDI is not counted in the national unemployment rate (a politician’s wet dream) and this is one reason why the labor participation rate is the lowest it’s been since the mid-70’s. In this manner, SSDI sweeps political undesirables who would otherwise be unemployed or on other forms of welfare under the rug, paying them what amounts to a monthly bribe to stay out of the most widely reported economic health indicators.

The unemployment rate is looking better already!

A Rose by Any Other Name?

Progressives or other utilitarians might claim it matters little whether we call the redistribution “welfare,” “disability,” or any other arbitrary label, because it’s all just so much hush money to keep the lower classes fat, happy, and not murdering the 1% in their goose-feathered comforters at night. But this rationale misses the critical distinctions between SSDI and traditional welfare, which are the dishonesty and finality inherent in the program.

Only the willfully blind could deny, against the weight of the evidence, that there is little medically wrong with many of the “disabled” collecting SSDI. They enroll not because they physically cannot work (let’s face it – if you can type, you can work), but because the pay would be low or the job unpleasant. They may spin their tales for understandable reasons – desperation, practicality, or economic hardship – but at the end of the day, they are committing a moral fraud on their society. They know this, and it eats at their dignity every day, making them ever-more fearful, ashamed, and resentful. Those who know these individuals may also recognize the deceit, leading to lower public trust in each other and in public institutions, which arrives with a whole host of related social and political problems. Other means of dealing with the “unemployable” segments of the population – public employment, jobs programs, or military service – at least give the individuals dignity, societal buy-in, and some useful skills and experience for their resumes.

Furthermore, once someone is on SSDI, it is FOREVER, unlike the failed dependency programs of yesteryear that were “fixed” by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which ushered in the more limited Temporary Assistance for Needy Familie (TANF) program. SSDI’s $1000-2000 a month may seem paltry at first, but with payroll taxes and healthcare contributions taken out of the equation, it’s a respectable sum of money on which to live, and getting a check for no obligations whatsoever beats the heck out of low-skill labor. A program that can only ratchet up and never down is destined to blow up, especially during a recession, and indeed SSDI is slated to become insolvent in less than three years time.

There are all manner of reasonable reforms that should have been enacted years ago: partial disability, incentives to return to work, independent doctor certification, and so on. But before these reforms have any chance of enactment, SSDI must be recognized as the kabuki theater it is, masking a new, nefarious, and unsustainable form of welfare.

Celebrity In Chief

It’s the night of the Grand Ball in Versailles Palace, and anyone who is anyone will be there, hobnobbing and photo-oping with the increasingly cozy elites of the news media and national politics (my invitation was lost in the mail this year).

The White House Correspondents’ dinner began in 1920 as a relatively modest affair, but with the ever-growing profile and power of the federal government, combined with the fanatical celebritization of the Executive Office since 2008, the event has since ballooned into one of the nation’s most extravagant and widely covered red-carpet star-gazing events.

Renowned foreign-policy expert Sofia Vergara arrives at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (Source: CNN).

If you’re truly interested in the full list of celebrity attendants, you’ll have to get it from CNN because… screw you.

But before closing the door on this wretched display of sycophants and status seekers, one interesting phenomenon worth mentioning is the cottage industry of faux criticism and introspection now accompanying the event, primarily appearing on the same leftist outlets affording it the most hype and publicity. In addition to being a form of publicity in itself, these staged discussions function as safe-outlet Potemkin Villages for any would-be actual critics or reformers.

“See? We may be promoting this crap… but we feel really bad about it… and isn’t that what matters?”

Remember – you’re free to complain as long as nothing actually changes.

“For Girls” Construction Set Pushes Paternalism as Empowerment

A “for girls” construction set claiming to promote gender equality is receiving significant fanfare throughout progressive social media. Fresh from a much-hyped kickstarter campaign is GoldieBlox, a toy brand created by Stanford engineer Debbie Sterling to “level the playing field” for women in the sciences. Notwithstanding the widely reported fact that women earn more advanced degrees than men, Sterling is disheartened more women aren’t choosing the right kinds of advanced degrees in fields like engineering, her own career choice.

According to its website, GoldieBlox is a play set designed “from the female perspective” with a mission of “inspiring the next generation of female engineers” and “disrupting the pink aisle” in retail stores everywhere. Left unanswered is what degree of disruption it is likely to cause, being ostensibly purple and pink itself.

Heroically tackling the “pink aisle” with… purple and pink.

So GoldieBlox might not the most principled product when it comes to living its message. But it isn’t hypocritical within the social engineer’s framework to break a few eggs toward achieving a bold new vision of progress. In the same vein, we can’t reasonably expect Al Gore to fly coach to every climate change conference, or to host fundraisers in a more ecologically modest home with fewer than eight bathrooms to accommodate his many visitors.

Sterling doesn’t identify, in her passive-voice narrative, who exactly it is saying girls shouldn’t enter the sciences. Interestingly, she acknowledges it was her math teacher who actively encouraged her to apply to engineering programs. Maybe it’s more of a tacit-conspiracy-type thing, or everyone else’s teacher who is the problem. Regardless, if GoldieBlox truly opens doors to women that had been slammed in their faces over decades of male oppression, shouldn’t any true individualist be applauding the achievement?

Perhaps. But the biggest problem is – like most progressive social causes – it’s predicated on a lot of nonsense. There is no sweeping corporatist agenda to keep women out of the sciences (cutting out half the market doesn’t typically help profits), nor is there any obvious reason why girls would feel unwelcome picking up a set of Playmobil. The Erector brand has been marketing its products to girls since the World War II period. Lincoln Logs has included images of girls building its products since the early 1960’s. The Lego Group has run ad campaigns featuring girls since at least the 1970’s.

 

The patriarchy, asleep at the wheel across the decades.

It’s notable that the heartless, profit-driven businesses of eras past succeeded where GoldieBlox fails today – in marketing a construction product to girls sans crippling victim mentality and odious paternalism.

Strip away all the equality doublespeak and GoldieBlox doesn’t provide girls with free choice, i.e actual empowerment. Girls can already select from hundreds of gender-neutral building products in any major retailer across America. Instead, the dubious distinction of GoldieBlox is its explicit messaging that girls are making the wrong choices, and the way it robs them of agency by prescribing what their correct choices should be. To add insult to injury, it places girls on effective notice that they require special protectionism in contrast with their male counterparts, which is sure to produce lifelong inferiority complexes and more Debbie Sterlings “obsessed” with equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity.

If progressives are fawning over something, there’s a good chance it involves limiting or discouraging the free choices of other people. This product, which targets a demographic and delineates acceptable behaviors for it, is no exception. I’ll skip the blonde bimbo the next time I do any holiday shopping, and I’m not talking about Barbie, who had a pretty bitchin’ career as an astronaut the last time I ran into her.

The Liberty Movement Isn’t

 

“Do you know what it takes to unite 90 clans, half of whom want to massacre the other half for one insult or another?”

“I told them we were all going to die if we don’t get south. Because that’s the truth.”

Outside of Westeros, Mance Rayder might have been describing the state of the modern liberty movement. Or since many individualists bristle at the idea of being lumped in with any “movement,” we might pop a few antacids and call it an alignment of efforts toward a common goal. Whatever the label, things are not going well for liberty lovers lately:

• Libertarians quarreling with conservatives over piddling social issues like same-sex marriage.
• Anarchists feuding with minarchists over the conceivable value of a public road.
• Objectivists denouncing everyone – especially themselves – over who is the purist heir to kingdom of Ayn Rand.

Meanwhile, a tireless coalition of progressive politicians, appointees, and social-interest groups – backed by the ever-expanding legions of zombie voters – decisively expands the size and scope of government like clockwork.

So what does the tally look like in 2014?

The national debt is larger than ever before. The federal government is larger and more powerful than ever before. The District of Columbia suburbs are the wealthiest in the country. Workforce participation is at its lowest level since the Carter administration. Disability claims are at an all-time high. Food stamp dependency is at an all-time high. More laws and regulations are on the books this year than ever before, and the same is projected to hold true next year, and the year after that.

This much is abundantly clear: if a united front does not form against the progressive tide, this country and what freedoms it still offers are going to die.

Shall we get moving?