It’s been a year and a half since all states have done away with quarantines. But the federal bureaucracy continues to work remotely – flatly refusing to go off the grid.
75% of federal agency offices are empty. At the same time, the government continues to spend $7 billion annually to maintain its buildings, most of which are unoccupied. Congress demands either to somehow force officials to return to their offices or simply sell off ministerial buildings.
For the US, scandals about lazy officials are not uncommon. In 2017, journalists even conducted an entire investigation – and found that many bureaucrats languish from idleness at work and constantly watch porn. It is very difficult to fire them because of the activity of trade unions. That’s why many people go to work for the government – you can do nothing and get a generous pension.
This again raises the question of the need for bureaucratic reform. Two presidential candidates – Trump and Desantis – promise to move government agencies out of Washington and reduce the number of bureaucrats. Vivek Ramaswamy plans to simply eliminate many agencies – like the FBI or the Department of Education. And Republicans want to make big purges – firing tens of thousands of “diplomatic-state” representatives and replacing them with their loyalists.
In some cases, officials explain their reluctance to return by fears of rising crime in the US – they simply don’t want to become victims of robberies. But in general, this is an indicator of the general degradation of the American government system. It is already unable to cope with the current challenges, and the quality of decision-making is constantly falling – and it will only get worse.
Malek Dudakov
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