Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Deep Stasis: The Rubber Room
I assume that everyone here has heard about the Rubber Room policy in the New York City schools. This policy, is designed to deal with teachers who, frequently for reasons of criminal behavior, cannot be put in a classroom. Union regulations prevent the schools from doing the obviously sensible thing and firing them, so they warehouse them, having them come to a room every day and just sit there, in exchange for their salary and benefits, and if they stay around long enough, their pension. The last time I heard, there are 3,000 of them.
It occurred to me that the same type of strategy might be very effective in helping the Trump administration deal with the problem of politically motivated leaks, and other resistance to the implementation of his policies, the issue that is being called the Deep State. I propose that Trump set up a Rubber Room for each department and agency within the federal government.
There are thousands of federally owned office buildings that are sitting empty right now. Start transferring people and filling them up. This can be done on the cheap. No phones, no internet, just whatever furniture is already there in the building. Give them someplace to sit, with a desk or table surface. Let them read the racing form, or run a home business or play Angry Birds on their phone all day; the same kinds of things that the teachers do. Therefore, since this new department would have no mandate and no budget, the only costs incurred by this program would be the building maintenance and the human resources costs, both of which they are already paying,
As to who we send over to the new Division of Nothing, I would start by firing any political appointee that is still left over from the last administration. Trump can do that today, and those people are just gone. Next, I would look at all the people who started out as political appointees but then became career civil servants. Apparently, there are a lot of them, including people like Lois Lerner, who was originally appointed by Clinton. Any appointed by Clinton or Obama get a golden ticket to the rubber room.
Additionally, any truly useless people should be sent as well. The guy caught watching porn 6 hours a day, the admin who has been passed around more times than a joint at a Grateful Dead concert because she is just so completely useless. Anyone who interferes with the efficient operation of those departments.
Bring the lawyers in to make sure they don’t violate any union or civil service regulations. But I don’t see any reason the basic idea isn’t workable. They are simply being transferred from one group to another within the same department or agency. They will still have the same classification, the same salary and benefits, they will just report to a different office every morning. I don’t think they will have standing for any kind of lawsuit, because they haven’t suffered any harm, and I can’t believe union or civil service regulations prevent intra-departmental transfers.
And they do nothing. Which means they can’t leak sensitive information, because they don’t have any. And they can’t obstruct the implementation of policy, because they aren’t involved in the implementation of policy. As for the loss of manpower, people like this cost more manpower than they produce.
I would expect many of them to quit, which is an extra bonus since Trump wants to cut 10% of the federal work force. Looks win-win to me.
Published in General
It didn’t take very much effort to discover that the number 3000 is a pretty gross exaggeration. The actual number hit a high of between 600 and 800, and, at last count, was 200. It is still a ridiculous situation, but let’s keep things in the realm of reality. Trumpian exaggerations really don’t belong on the pages of Ricochet.
I based that on the discussion in the news reports at the time of the budget shortfall that I mentioned in a previous comment. Are you saying I can’t trust the news media?
Under the current Civil Service setup you accumulate a lot of career bureaucrats. In theory, these would be roughly split between Dem and Rep since presidential elections seem to go that way. In practice, this has worked out about the same way it does in universities, meaning conservatives come and go but leftists hang around forever.
If we want our government to reflect the will of the people then let the current president have a bureaucracy which carries out his wishes. If people have a problem with that they can correct it at the ballot box. What means do the people have of doing that under the current system?
Sorry, but the folks in New York earned this.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want,
and deserve to get it good and hard. ….”
Keep voting Progressive NY.
This is a brilliant idea only if the placement in the rubber room does not necessitate the hiring of another employee. This is a practical means of reducing the size of the Federal work force. Eventually all of these people will either quit or retire and because no additional employees were hired the work force and thus the Federal budget will shrink. M