One of the key architects of President Trump’s effort to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., thinks he has found a solution.
Mick Mulvaney, the president’s acting chief of staff and the current budget chief, explained it this way to a home crowd in South Carolina Friday night: Propose moving an agency outside the “liberal haven” of Washington, and staff will quit instead.
“What a wonderful way to sort of streamline government and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time,” he said.
The former South Carolina lawmaker, addressing the state Republican Party’s Silver Elephant gala, was explaining the economic achievements of the administration when he turned to the president’s 2016 campaign promise to drain the swamp.
“It’s really, really hard to drain the swamp, but we’re working at it,” he said.
Mick Mulvaney began his @SCGOP speech last night by showing slide with @SpeakerPelosi
“crumbs” quote about tax bill https://t.co/cZ9pRhMPMm pic.twitter.com/9gOELV4Iih— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) August 3, 2019
As budget chief and now White House staff boss, he told of the difficulty in even getting rid of one federal worker or agency.
For example, he said that when he was the temporary chief of the huge Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created in legislation pushed by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, he tried to move it to Cleveland.
But, he said, the legislation barred him from that.
“It was against the law for me to move” it, he said. “That’s how hard liberals work in making sure government lives forever. And the government consistently gets bigger, and you can’t make it any smaller,” he added.
But he told of the success in moving some agencies outside the Beltway and the added benefit of bureaucrats quitting.
Mulvaney cited the administration’s decision to move two Department of Agriculture research agencies to Kansas City.
“Guess what happened? More than half the people quit. Now, it’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker. I know that because a lot of them work for me, and I’ve tried. You can’t do it.
“By simply saying to people, ‘You know what, we’re going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven of Washington, D.C., and move you out to the real part of the country, and they quit.
“What a wonderful way to sort of streamline government and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time,” concluded, adding, “even that was difficult to do.”
