Moving exempt government employees into non-exempt positions at the end of an administration isn’t new at any level of government. Apparently, the Biden administration is going to take it to a brand new high – 3,000 partisans going to the bureaucracy as opposed to the prior record of 2,500 by the Obama administration.
The difference between exempt and non-exempt employees is the laws to which the two classifications are subject. Non-exempt employees, for instance, have a plethora of protections that are not available to exempt employees who “serve at the pleasure” and can be easily removed from their positions.
Non-exempt employees are usually, but not always, paid less, but their positions are permanent and subject to FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act). They become entrenched and are available, as loyalists to a prior administration, to pull all manner of shenanigans to undermine a new administration. Trump’s first administration is a shining example.
Things are different this time around. First, the Trump people know what they’re doing and where to dig up the bodies. Second, the tactic isn’t strictly legal, and they can try (don’t forget who sits on the D.C. benches) to fight bogus hirings. And third, President Trump has Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy combing through the bureaucracy to make deep cuts.
Starting those cuts with newly hired non-exempt employees who were formerly exempt employees seems like a great idea. And firing because of downsizing and job elimination is an additional legal argument to bolster the administration’s position. I hope that “everybody does it” is no longer going to be tolerated.
Why is this activity so destructive? Think about it. Our system depends, first and foremost, on trust . . . the trust of the American people that the persons and policies they elected will make the changes they voted for or maintain the status quo they supported. Particularly, when an election is clearly decisive, like 2024, Americans are looking for things to happen.
Stuffing the bureaucracy is as rotten as stuffing a ballot box. Both rip off the American citizen’s most highly prized treasure, the vote. These thieves “burrow” in and work to undermine the success of an incoming administration. They do all that they can to stop the voters’ preferred agenda.
The practice also helps to maintain the size and even the scope of government, a devastating obstacle to any meaningful reform of government. And there may be no greater gift to the American people than to get our corrupt and gargantuan government in check. Much of government is nothing more than a program for the unemployable.
Now I must make an embarrassing admission. I’ve worked at two levels of government – federal and state, and all political. In my defense, all my positions were exempt, were offered to me by elected and appointed officials and when their status changed, I left except in one instance when my appointment was extended mid-term by the incoming politician of the same party.
But I also left a couple of jobs of my own volition because I was horrified by the incompetence of even my own political side. Generally, government “workers” don’t work very hard! And that is particularly true, of course, of non-exempt employees.
While government jobs requiring higher education often pay a little less than in the private sector, the government worker has job security and often much better benefits. Furthermore, the private sector employee works harder and must do a far superior job, or they get fired! Top political appointees and staffs do work, and they work long hours. But too many bureaucrats come in at 9 and are out at 5, like they were shot out of a cannon!
All my government work totaled eight years and none of my jobs were non-exempt. I did work alongside some truly good people and hard workers of both parties. Any one of them could have applied for their jobs, rather than walk in unchallenged, and still been hired. And that’s the way it should have been handled. No one is entitled to a salary and benefits for life.
So rooting out these schemes to turn undeserving exempt political employees into undeserving non-exempt bureaucrat employees should be high on the “government reform” list. When the politicians can’t find a job for themselves, they usually find a way to manufacture one, adding more bureaucrats to an already bloated bureaucracy. That should be a thing of the past.
