Administrative State

         

  "Personnel is Policy" is an oft repeated maxim in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.  The people you hire determine the policy you get. You know, like appointing someone who has never been to public school to head the Department of Education. That's a pretty good indication of your education policy. 

             The first section of the "Mandate on Leadership" is all about managing personnel from details of who reports to whom in the White House Office, and what agencies need to be eliminated in the Executive Office of the President, to the vast civil service system. 

         If you remember your American History, civil service used to be the domain of political cronies, jobs determined by who you know, not what you know. But that all changed after a disgruntled worker who lost his job assassinated President James A. Garfield. The Pendleton Act, passed in 1883, established the merit system where civil service jobs were based on qualifications, not political favors.

        The Mandate claims that the non-partisan, "merit" system became out of control over the years, so now it is virtually impossible to fire civil  servants even if they aren't doing the job. Several presidents going back to Jimmy Carter tried to update hiring practices and employee evaluations, but cost-of-living pay increases have overrun merit increases. That seems to be the Mandate's real complaint against civil service jobs -- pay and benefits are equal to Fortune 500 companies and exceed that of smaller businesses.

         Let me get this straight, the Mandate thinks the greatest country in the world should not compete with the biggest companies for the best employees.Surely that's not the point this section is supposed to be making. 

        The Mandate solution is to make sure every agency and department is headed by a political appointee--not as a political favor you understand, but just to insure that the President's policy is being carried out and appropriations are properly approved. 

    Is this what they mean by "dismantling the administrative state"? Returning to the cronyism of 150 years ago?