{"id":1799,"date":"2017-01-13T08:27:02","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T14:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2017-01-13T08:27:02","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T14:27:02","slug":"congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear &#8211; good!"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/630875090\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 76.599327% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/630875090?et=wyjz9QOXQBRoyI0IpPNFag&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=tafDbx6HxRzyUhV6diXcOa2JX_OwyMYnkE00P-IEx7Q=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"455\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Over two million people are employed by the federal government, and too many of them have enjoyed unprecedented levels of job security even when they\u2019ve failed at their duties. This undue protection has bloated the federal budget, and the new Congress aims to trim the fat by revising a rule started a decade after the Civil War.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Holman Rule, adopted in 1876 as a means to control the booming national debt post-war, gives lawmakers the power to target wasteful programs, spending, and has also been used to eliminate individual federal employees or groups of employees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDepending on how lawmakers use the rule,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/federal-workers-worry-about-their-jobs-under-trump\/ar-BBy2Xlu\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Reuters<\/a> noted, \u201cthey could undermine long-standing civil service protections, such as ensuring that federal employees with the same job title are paid equally regardless of performance.\u201d A worrisome idea to Democrats who fear the rule might be used for nefarious political purposes.<\/p>\n<p>But conservatives and other small-government minded people and organizations love the idea. Freedom Works director Jason Pye said, \u201cThere are too many people working in the federal government, too many federal agencies; there\u2019s an alphabet soup. What we\u2019re simply saying is the federal government has grown too big.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/holman-rule-will-help-improve-civil-service\/article\/2611231\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>The Washington Examiner<\/em><\/a> reported, \u201cUp to now, firing even the worst federal bureaucrat has been very, very difficult, so difficult that voters no longer control the agencies they employ and that govern their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho runs this country, the people of the United States or the people on the people\u2019s payroll?\u201d asked Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA).<\/p>\n<p><em>The Examiner<\/em> noted that because the rule requires an act of Congress, it won\u2019t be invoked willy-nilly; only when necessary, as in the following examples:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Take Elizabeth Rivera of Puerto Rico, for example, who was restored to her job at the Department of Veterans Affairs after pleading guilty to involvement in an armed robbery. Her union not only thwarted managers\u2019 attempts to fire her but even successfully won back pay for the period when she had been off the job. As part of its argument for her reinstatement, officials of the American Federation of Government Employees pointed out that her manager at the agency is also a convicted sex offender\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Internal Revenue Service employees who deleted Lois Lerner\u2019s emails when they were under congressional subpoena were not fired. Aside from a few scapegoats, the VA employees who systematically manipulated the agency\u2019s computer system at more than 100 facilities, harming veterans to win themselves performance bonuses, were not fired. Two VA managers who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from their agency could not be fired. Nor could many of those implicated in the notorious scandal involving a General Services Administration conference in Las Vegas in 2010.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why should corrupt federal employees enjoy protections not afforded to other hard-working Americans? A healthy fear of losing your job is always a good thing. The Holman Rule will help ensure the most qualified people are earning taxpayer dollars and will tell those that are abusing the system that they aren\u2019t guaranteed a job just because they work in Washington.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s time to trim the fat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":1801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear - good!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s time to trim the fat.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear - good!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s time to trim the fat.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-13T14:27:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-12-at-8.46.18-AM.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"510\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"336\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/\",\"name\":\"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear - good!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-13T14:27:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-13T14:27:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421\"},\"description\":\"It\u2019s time to trim the fat.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear &#8211; good!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/\",\"name\":\"Mark Meckler\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421\",\"name\":\"Mark Meckler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Meckler\"},\"description\":\"Mark is one of the nation\u2019s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/author\/mmeckler\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear - good!","description":"It\u2019s time to trim the fat.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear - good!","og_description":"It\u2019s time to trim the fat.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/","og_site_name":"Mark Meckler","article_published_time":"2017-01-13T14:27:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":510,"height":336,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-12-at-8.46.18-AM.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Mark Meckler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Meckler","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/","name":"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear - good!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-01-13T14:27:02+00:00","dateModified":"2017-01-13T14:27:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421"},"description":"It\u2019s time to trim the fat.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/01\/congress-revives-140-year-old-rule-federal-workers-fear-good\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Congress revives 140-year-old rule that has federal workers in fear &#8211; good!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/","name":"Mark Meckler","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421","name":"Mark Meckler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Mark Meckler"},"description":"Mark is one of the nation\u2019s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/author\/mmeckler\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}