The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Federal civil servants are carefully selected based on tests, educational achievement and background checks. They are asked to enter a lifetime of service governed by strict rules and traditions. Among them is the requirement that they meet the demands of 14 ethics regulations meant to assure that their decisions are never influenced by personal wealth or future employment.
This is the so-called swamp that Donald of Queens charged into Washington, D.C., to destroy. Instead, the Dr. Anthony Fauci’s have become national heroes while the conqueror will likely be discharged in November. The president’s followers see charm in his constant attempts to get around the rules to get his way. What they fail to realize is that by demeaning the accepted process of governing they cheat themselves.
When proper procedures aren’t followed, the mail isn’t delivered on time, highways fall into disrepair, police become militarized and abuse peaceful protest, the environment is further despoiled, and foreign policy is politicalized. Sound familiar? The irony is that the stronger this unchecked presidency becomes, the worse its achievement of the most modest responsibilities.
For government to work well, America must return to the regular order that produced the most successful free society in history. Laws and rules are the DNA of the American form of government.
When President Jimmy Carter, a man I greatly admire, was convinced by his young environmental staff to cancel outright a group of important water projects, including the Central Arizona Project, a tsunami of outrage from his Democratic Congress caused him to change his mind. It is a good thing because if he had insisted on the cancellation, Tucson today would not have a sufficient water supply for its populace.
Quite the converse with Donald of Queens. Failing to win the policy argument in Congress to spend billions on his border wall, Trump simply ordered the military to use their construction and housing budget to fulfill his unapproved project.
This was not only inappropriate but probably illegal, and yet not a word of criticism came from Republicans on the Hill. We have no idea what the long-term ramifications of the president’s actions, but like those counting on the Central Arizona Project, future citizens and probably military families in need of housing will suffer the consequences.
They must be significant because the administration is doing double time on canceled projects to calm the anger of North Carolinians before election day. Who knows what Arizona has lost. It is not just about projects that have been carefully planned and approved in the normal process. Now, endangered by Trump’s decimation of the rules, is the nation’s health. Employing his own election year science, the president has, through intimidation, politicized the Food and Drug Administration, which must approve any new vaccine by use of tried and true methods to prove safety and effectiveness. Placing politics in the middle of vaccine issue’s is the equivalent of poisoning of America for personal benefit.
What if it doesn’t work? Or if it does, suspicion lingers in the public limiting use. The man cares not, as evidenced by 190,000 dead witnesses and climbing. Moreover, those in charge of the systems in the executive branch and Congress are usually very competent.
As a young assistant secretary of transportation, I was obliged to appear each year many times before the House Appropriations Subcommittee that carried the oversight responsibility for DOT’s then $20 billion budget. I quickly learned that one had best not appear unprepared, when on my first testimony, I misstated by $500 the annual budget for my personal office.
The Chairman Robert Duncan of Oregon corrected my number and then advised me to never again appear without the facts. Duncan was one of 13 “Cardinals” who handled separate federal accounts, and I always admire the level of detail these members possess. They study hard and act on their responsibilities to the public with great understanding.
Contrast that to the intentionally ignorant cronies Trump has put in charge of crucial programs like Post Master Louis DeJoy, who revealed in hearings that he did not know the price of sending a postcard.
Today that process has broken down, and with it the ability of the system to guarantee the American public that spending decisions are the product of education and wisdom.
The 13 annual appropriation bills these days are rarely finished and are often collapsed into a single 1,000-page document full of unauthorized pet projects placed by leaders as favors to the loyal. Arguably, the Republicans have been worse, but both parties have readily engaged in this bastardization of the normal process of governance. And what has been the result? Do we see better roads or airports or ports? Has the nation’s public housing shortage improved?
Perhaps most important, has our public education system been sufficiently funded? Certainly not when a recent Department of Education study found that 35% of our people, 80 million Americans, either cannot read or read to the fifth-grade level.
The degradation of the rules, celebrated by Trump’s followers, is a missile targeted at America’s greatness. I for one hope this realization has arrived in 2020, and that the county will dispose of a presidency that has inflicted great harm on our beloved country.
