Bureaucracy Isn't Measured in Bureaucrats

[ed. The stupidity is breathtaking. I can only assume this was some kind of trolling scare tactic to demonstrate bona fides with the new administration. Want permits to take twice as long, with half the people to review them (check); want to create a new level of homelessness as tens of thousands of people are thrown out of work and lose their healthcare (check); want to get sued forever, or at least long enough to get through one administration (check); want to sever all institutional knowledge of technical issues (check); want the same work to be outsourced to private contractors at twice the price (check); want to degrade the environment, food and drug safety, financial industry safeguards, etc. (check, check, and check). And more.

I suspect the real reason this is a thing is that grifters like Trump and Musk and the Swamy just want enough short-term approvals (from their embedded political operatives) to clear enough regulatory hurdles to blast their future economic prospects to the moon (and beyond). It's not that faceless bureaucrats are to blame, it's that politicians pass laws that the administrative state are then obligated to put into regulations. If you want to go after government waste and inefficiency go after misguided laws and unecessary regulations, not the people that are burdened with writing, enforcing and defending them. Note: the size of the federal government workforce has barely budged over the last 20 years since 2000 (CRS), and is less than 4 percent of the total budget, excluding military personnel:]

Compensation (wages and benefits) for the 3.8 million federal defense and nondefense workers accounts for 8 percent of spending. Defense workers (uniformed and civilian) account for 56 percent of compensation and nondefense for 44 percent. (Cato Institute)

See also: Bureaucracy Isn't Measured in Bureaucrats (ACX)

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