Are Government Bureaucrats Corrupt and Dishonest?

Townhall.com ^ | January 26, 2014 | Daniel J. Mitchell

[marsh2]

I have worked closely with state and federal agencies for more than 20 years. Many of them are ideologues, particularly of the environmental or progressive persuasion. In their minds, the ends justify the means.

[familyop]

Such bureaucrats and their many associates dominate in politics, because they have the money and time to do so. They’ve outlawed many important kinds of work through regulations and are driving the economy into the ground—realities of the economy being concealed by continued schemes for using recirculating debt.

[Tax-chick]

Non-govt is the defense contractors. Not a good situation at present.

I agree. I only said "it could be argued" that some functions didn't have to be DoD employees, not that it went without saying!

[bitt]

would love to see a website that can detail for us the Financial statements of our Reps and Senators before they entered office and what they’re worth now...

[texas booster]

Forget the net worth of Reps and Senators.

I want to see that chart of net worth change for bureaucrats and unappointed czars.

[jospehm20]

I think pretty much everything the government does should be contracted out. There is not much the government employees do that could not be done by contractors. It is much easier to terminate contractors that do not perform or are not needed anymore than it is to terminate government employees. As a bonus, we don’t have to pay them when they retire either.

[Tax-chick]

When my father retired from the Navy in the mid 1980s, he went to work for a “Beltway bandit” defense contracting firm doing what he’d done for the Navy in his last years, nuclear weapons logistics. Every time a new contract was signed to manage the Sparrow missile program, the new contractor would hire the staff from the previous contractor.

[jospehm20]

I have been on and know of contracts that ended and the new company hired nobody off the old contract. I was once working on a contract where the Army just cancelled the whole thing in January because they needed the money for the war elsewhere and they picked it up again in October. Sometimes they just hire the old crew. It varies. The government and the companies usually do what is more expedient or cheaper for them. The point is, hiring contractors to do stuff gives the government flexibility they do not have with government employees.