The Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE ) has truly outrageous misuse of taxpayer funds in just a few weeks. The career administrators at USAID have spent a lot of tax money over the years, from subventioning electric cars in Vietnam to commission a” trans comic publication” in Peru to funding infrastructure projects in Egypt. However, the wayward spending just scratches the surface.
The crimes against Americans don’t stop at using their hard-earned income to benefit their allies and spread the gospel of wokeism across the globe under the pretext of life-saving support. They include trying to completely derail a sitting president by attempting to steal public money from their allies, conducting numerous organized coercion and repression campaigns against republicans for expressing their political beliefs, meddling in parliamentary policy, and trying to completely derail a relaxing president.
When they’re not occupied squandering our duty money, they’re failing at their basic tasks. Look no further than the national response to the 2023 East Palestine train derailment or Hurricane Helene’s aftermath. None of our government organizations are as effective as they did ten years ago, aside from maybe facilitating problem. Few, if any, of the insolvent officials always face punishment for their crimes against this country. In reality, they’re usually rewarded.
The current operational state has grown so crooked and unaccountable to the populace that the patronage system, which predated 19th-century American politics, now appears to be a bit shabby.
A support system developed rapidly in the new United States after the first two political alliances, the Liberals and the Democratic-Republicans, formed, but it didn’t come to dominate British politics until the president of Andrew Jackson. Jackson gave a large number of national positions to his political allies and supporters of his campaign in the 1828 election. In a single season, he fired over 400 shooting in order to provide their work to his followers.
The patronage system became a common practice in American politics as more and more presidents followed Jackson’s plan, satisfying devoted supporters and devoted campaigners with beneficial government positions. In addition to the court, the president largely appointed diplomats, postmasters, and customs officials — all attractive and desirable positions.
The support system was once seen as a potentially transformational force in American politicians by political figures at the time. In part because they knew that Abraham Lincoln would be able to assign Republican presidents in the South, which would undermine slaves ‘ control, they feared a Democratic triumph in the 1860 presidential election.
Following the Civil War and during Ulysses S. Grant’s notoriously corrupt leadership, reform calls gained traction. After Charles Guiteau, a gentleman who had campaigned for then-candidate James Garfield but felt sacked when he failed to get a federal employment in return, attempted to reform the legal services, assassinated President Garfield in 1881. The national bureaucracy’s operation was significantly altered by the later Pendleton Civil Service Act, which was passed in 1883. Second, it mandated that some government positions be determined based on merit, and it also introduced dynamic examinations for potential government employees. Next, it forbade dismissing or degrading a federal employee who is subject to the law for political motives. The Civil Service Commission was established to oversee and maintain the work, after it was created.
The Pendleton Act’s following clause, which makes it illegal to blaze a federal employee who is a law worker for political reasons, raises some serious issues. At the time of the government’s section, its measures simply covered about 10 percentage of national staff. The Pendleton Act’s current scope of practice covers more than 90 % of governmental employees.
That means a conservative senator can’t remove ostensibly communist federal bureaucrats simply because they’re zealously opposed to his plan. Otherwise, he has to get creative, with issues like buyouts and DOGE’s reviews.
The sponsorship system no question resulted in severe instances of common corruption, nepotism, and dark backroom deals. However, it still had some benefits over the operational state of today.
The problem existing in the sponsorship program did not, unlike today’s bureaucracy, go worldwide with its malfeasance, mainly according to how the system worked and the country’s noninterventionist international policy.
Also, unless one political party dominates the president, the treasures system ensures that the government does not become intellectually entrenched. Additionally, it gives the senior branch’s executive branch more direct control over the chain of command. We’ve seen just how significant political meetings can be in the federal court system. When a new leader is elected, he fills positions with his own supporters, which lessens the chance that the government may try to undermine or impede his plan.
The leader should have the authority to employees that tree with people he knows will not deliberately oppose his plans and, by extension, the authority given to him by the British citizens.
Sen. William Marcy, D-N. Y., was correct when he defended Jackson’s appointment of his allies to government jobs in 1832:” To The victor belong the spoils”. An ideological shift in the administrative state should be one of the outcomes of the 2024 election.
The dysfunction in federal institutions needs to be completely changed, but the Trump administration and DOGE have begun to implement some degree of accountability for the out-of-control agencies. Without one, Trump’s second term will be plagued by the specter of sabotage in the same way that it was his first.
The patronage system appears to be a model of government accountability because of how easily we’ve allowed our system of government to fall due to how easily we’ve allowed it to fall.
Hayden Daniel is a staff editor at The Federalist. He previously held positions as deputy editor/opinion editor at The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire’s editor. He received a B. Washington and Lee University offers an A. in European History with minors in philosophy and classics. Follow him on Twitter at @HaydenWDaniel
