In the latest in a long line of cynical, self-serving political moves, the Biden regime has issued a new rule aimed at immunizing the so-called “deep state” against future Republican presidential administrations. The rule, issued by the Office of Personnel Management, states that career bureaucrats have protected status that cannot be revoked, making it difficult for Republican presidents to run the government without being constantly undermined by employees of the executive branch.
“Today, my Administration is announcing protections for 2.2 million career civil servants from political interference, to guarantee that they can carry out their responsibilities in the best interest of the American people,” President Joe Biden said in a statement last week. “This rule is a step toward combating corruption and partisan interference to ensure civil servants are able to focus on the most important task at hand: delivering for the American people.”
If past is prologue, former President Donald Trump will be more noise than signal in regard to personnel management if he is to prevail in November. Deep-staters with values contrary to the 45th president were often hired, promoted, and even given presidential commendations over Trump’s four years in office. From rogue FBI agents to leaky intelligence community staffers, the men and women who staff the government proved themselves, time and time again, to be agents of the Democratic Party more than servants of the people.
“It is high time for reform, and Joe Biden and his fellow corrupt deep state backers know this,” says the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025. “The bloated and uncontrollable administrative state needs to be streamlined, right-sized and depoliticized — which has not happened in nearly the past 50 years.”
Mike Gonzalez of Project 2025 pointed out last month that bureaucrats in the Department of Education gave more than 97% of their donated dollars to Democratic candidates, while at the Federal Communications Commission, it was 99.29%. At the Labor Department, it was 92%; at the Agriculture Department, 88%; Energy Department, 93%; Interior Department, 91%; and the Environmental Protection Agency, 90%. Members of the Justice Department, the enforcement arm of the government, donated to Democrats at an 88% clip, which explains the lack of internal outrage over the blatant targeting of Biden’s political opponents.
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Time will tell if a second Trump administration would even attempt to streamline the federal government, but that quest would not be without precedent. President Calvin Coolidge cut the federal budget by 60%, and President Ronald Reagan trimmed over 100,000 federal employees from the books. Famously, Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei is currently hacking away at his nation’s socialist government workforce.
If any future Republican president is serious about cutting spending and bringing the nation’s debt crisis under control, large-scale public sector layoffs will be required, and if people are to get a reprieve from illegal spying and political targeting by the Department of Justice, this rule cannot stand. If so-called civil servants are immune from termination by their boss, the elected president, the country is already in a constitutional crisis.
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.