Stephen Moore: What if Federal Workers Never Showed Up for Work and No One Missed Them?

This is the most scandalous federal government incident of all time. Numerous federal employees, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, have been receiving a full-time salary from Uncle Sam (meaning all of us), without ever showing up to work. Three For many years. It’s not called Club Fed.

Fair enough, employees working remotely don’t necessarily mean they are not working. Only a little more than half of private sector workers are actually in the office these days — although, with each passing day, private workers are returning to work sites. The percentage of remote workers in the public sector is much higher. Federal Times reports that only 1 out of 3 federal bureaucrats had been working in the office at the end in 2022.

Wait. The COVID scare ended two and a half years ago, and most private businesses have demanded their employees show up for work at least some of the time — or find a new employer. What is so special about government employees?

James Comer (R.KY), the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is currently pushing a bill which would require federal agencies and their telework policies to be reinstituted as they were on Dec. 31, 2019. Expansive remote work will only be permitted for authorized projects. The House passed this bill with a vote of 221-206. Guess what? All but six House Democrats voted “no” Is it any wonder? Well, over 90% of PAC donations received from federal employee unions goes to…

To whom are the Democrats responsible? Federal employees, their constituents and taxpayer voters who pay the workers’ salaries? This vote answers that question. This vote shows that the majority of Americans in the private sector are back at work. But not the 1.9million federal employees who receive $100,000 in salaries and benefits each year. Although this is a gross abuse of taxpayer money, there is a silver-lining. You may have noticed that federal workers don’t show up at the Department of Energy or Education or Transportation, or the State Department or Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Have you experienced any disruption in your daily life? Not mine.

We might have all learned something here. Perhaps these agencies aren’t as crucial as President Joe Biden believes they are. It is possible to save billions and reduce our debt by getting rid some of these irrelevant or obsolete agencies, departments, and bureaus.

Some agencies may be temporarily shut down if there is a budget impasse between Biden or congressional Republicans. What if we don’t know when workers are working? How could that be Armageddon?!

Perhaps we could reduce the federal workforce by half, from 2 million to 1,000,000 employees. My best guess would be that nobody would notice or care.

Stephen Moore is a Senior Fellow at Heritage Foundation and an economist for FreedomWorks. His most recent book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy.”

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