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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe chilling attack on liberal democracy buried in Trumps speech
https://thinkprogress.org/the-chilling-attack-on-liberal-democracy-buried-in-trumps-speech-71b708e34d59/The chilling attack on liberal democracy buried in Trumps speech
Trump wants his cronies to be able to fire people who don't do his bidding.
Ian Millhiser
Jan 30, 2018, 10:23 pm
President Donald Trump spent the bulk of his first State of the Union address touting his tax policy and laying out an immigration proposal that would advance many white nationalist organizations top priorities.
Buried within the speech, however, was a proposal that would fundamentally rework the balance of power between civil servants and political appointees and strike a deep blow to the rule of law in the process.
I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers, Trump said, and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.
On the surface, this proposal may seem benign who doesnt want public employees who fail the American people to be removed? But laws protecting civil servants against politically motivated firings are one of the foundations of liberal democracy.
They are what enable a prosecutor ordered to bring frivolous charges against the presidents political rivals to say no.
They are what permit investigators to target people suspected of genuine legal violations, not companies that compete with the presidents businesses.
They enable environmental regulators to tell the presidents appointees that they must obey the Clean Air Act. They empower Labor Department officials to target employers who give generously to the presidents party. They ensure that Medicaid benefits are still paid out to populations the president disapproves of.
Under current law, most civil servants may not be fired without good cause once they have served for a three-year probationary period. Protections like these are what prevents Trump from firing every civil servant who refuses to obey an illegal order.
And now Trump wants to eliminate this shield against unchecked presidential power.
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The chilling attack on liberal democracy buried in Trumps speech (Original Post)
babylonsister
Jan 2018
OP
dalton99a
(81,708 posts)1. Fascism in action.
DeminPennswoods
(15,305 posts)2. I'm not so sure
This stuff about firing poor performers/rewarding top performers in the civil service has been a mantra of the Rs for awhile. The federal gov't is one of the last bastions of unions and the Rs don't like even the meager protections provided by federal unions (the federal gov't is an open shop - joining and paying dues is optional - but the union still has to work for all bargaining unit employees).
The whole issue is a bit complicated because hard-working, which is the vast, vast majority of, civil servants resent having to pick up the slack for poor/under-performing colleagues and wish it was easier to get rid of them.
Initech
(100,151 posts)3. Begun, the purge has.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)4. I knew immediately what a threat that statement represents
I sure hope we find someway to get him out of office fairly soon -- we will not survive 4 years of him in office.