After bipartisan pushback, Trump ditches effort to kill major federal agency
Source: Washington Post
Politics
After bipartisan pushback, Trump ditches effort to kill major federal agency
By Lisa Rein and Josh Dawsey
Dec. 11, 2019 at 2:50 p.m. EST
President Trump has abandoned his administrations faltering effort to dissolve a key federal agency, a major setback in his three-year battle to keep his campaign promise to make government leaner and more efficient.
The Office of Personnel Management will remain the human resources manager of the civilian workforce of 2.1 million employees and its functions will not for the foreseeable future at least be parceled out to the White House and the General Services Administration.
The White House hoped that shuttering the agency of 5,500 employees could serve as a blueprint for eliminating other federal offices as Trump tries to contain the size and scope of a bureaucracy he targeted as duplicative and inefficient and rein in a workforce he views with skepticism.
But an 18-month effort by a top Office of Management and Budget official to eliminate the government personnel office left the plan on life support, despite a bipartisan consensus that the operation is deeply troubled.
....
[If Trump has his way, this major federal agency is on the way outl
Congressional Democrats and Republicans whose support was essential to disbanding the agency dismissed the plan as ill-conceived and unlikely to save money or shrink the federal workforce. A sweeping defense authorization bill that appears headed for approval on Capitol Hill on Wednesday relegates the breakup to an independent study committee, a common face-saving solution for ideas that tend to be going nowhere.
The agency would have been the first stand-alone federal department of its size to be eliminated in decades.
....
Lisa Rein covers federal agencies and the management of government in the Trump adminstration. At The Washington Post, she has written about the federal workforce; state politics and government in Annapolis, and in Richmond; local government in Fairfax County, Va. and the redevelopment of Washington and its neighborhoods. Follow https://twitter.com/Reinlwapo
Josh Dawsey is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017. He previously covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal. Follow https://twitter.com/jdawsey1
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-bipartisan-pushback-trump-ditches-effort-to-kill-major-federal-agency/2019/12/11/bbce1c10-16d8-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html
Wednesday, April 10, 2019:
Trump on track to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management
https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100211999177
elleng
(131,196 posts)'The Office of Personnel Management will remain the human resources manager of the civilian workforce of 2.1 million employees and its functions will not for the foreseeable future at least be parceled out to the White House and the General Services Administration.'
BumRushDaShow
(129,662 posts)This is all the handiwork of Bannon-
(even with him not physically being in there anymore)
Cha
(297,799 posts)putin's doormats suck the treasury dry.
Thank you for that appropriate pic, BRDS.
BumRushDaShow
(129,662 posts)OPM also handles all the retirees and survivors -including processing/managing/issuing the retirement annuities (and generating the annuity statements as well as managing any changes in withholdings), plus they send out the 1099Rs for tax purposes, etc.
Cha
(297,799 posts)stressful and scary for you all depending on the whim of a maniac.
I know how stressed out I got when he shut down the gov for so damn long.
and I still have friends and relatives working in the federal government - and as it is, the current Continuing Resolution only goes until December 20 so there needs to either be an extension or passage of some Omnibus appropriations for FY2020 or there will be another shutdown.
marlakay
(11,514 posts)About money she gets from my dad and he was retired government and I ended up on that site.
After setting up online account got all the info I needed.
BumRushDaShow
(129,662 posts)who unfortunately had died while still on the job 45 years ago, thus my mother received his survivor's annuity. So OPM has been in my life for my entire life! They processed my retirement and had my final monthly annuity amount (vs "estimated" ) completed within 4 months after my agency provided them the retirement package.
This mentality that they have to remake the federal government into a "business" despite the fact that the number of employees who make up the federal government, dwarfs that of the largest businesses in the U.S., is sickening. The "government" is not out to make a profit like a business, so every "business practice" does not apply to how the government should be remade to function.
OPM is the "Human Resources" agency for the federal government and deals with "people". GSA oversees pretty much all the other services needed to support the federal government like facilities management, fleet management, telecommunications management, and large multi-year federal contract management. Trying to combine the two is insane.
Lindsay
(3,276 posts)the personnel job on top of all his other duties.
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,064 posts)As a retired Federal employee I'm relieved on several levels.
elleng
(131,196 posts)chriscan64
(1,789 posts)Funny, they view him with skepticism too. Partisan Democrats and non-partisan career government workers all seem to agree Trump is incompetent. In Trump's little mind, not partisan for him equals partisan against him.
bucolic_frolic
(43,364 posts)honestly the assumptions these journalists accept and spew out is legendary and annoying.
He means 'like a skeleton and ineffective'
Lonestarblue
(10,106 posts)Reduce the federal government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub. How these idiots think you can run a country with around 330 million people with very few government employees is beyond me.
Wuddles440
(1,128 posts)the size (spending) of the federal government only the number of civil servants and their employment rules/regulations. It's all about getting tax dollars into private/for profit entities. Expanded patronage, more contractors, less accountability and transparency. The wet dream of all fascists.
Evolve Dammit
(16,781 posts)part of the GOP "deep state" swamp.
not fooled
(5,803 posts)666koch666 plan hits a road block. Old money-hoarding fossil fuel billionaire John Bircher thwarted in one of his evil aims.
These radical crackpots neither understand nor care what Federal employees do. The ones that aren't essential to extracting more $$$$$$ from 'Muricans are nonessential, in their warped minds.
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)Make no mistake, I see many trumpzis who call for dismissing every registered Democrat from the Civil Service.
Step one was bring the federal workforce directly under White House control.