Sunday, June 25, 2017

One Kudo, Mr. President.

My parents worked for the Federal government.  One was a good, conscientious worker, who received multiple promotions.  The other felt that any minimal effort was "good enough for government work."  I am intimately familiar with both perspectives.

The Veterans Administration has about 350 thousand employees.  I don't think of 50% of VA employees are useless and should be terminated.  I have met many, many fine employees in the VA.  But, I do think roughly 10% need to terminated immediately.  They clog the flow of health care.

Greatly complicating the problem is that the VA is the largest minority employer in the Federal universe.  To make sure minority employees were not fired as racial discrimination, the public employee union makes it unreasonably difficult to fire anyone, no matter how useless.  Minority protection might be a good primary function of the Federal government, but medical care of veterans is the primary function of the Veterans Administration.  Anything else must be secondary.

President Trump should be commended on signing new legislation that will make it slightly easier to fire the useless.  It is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.