Home › Opinion › Opinion
Editorial: Staffing the government
Vacancies need to be filled
STORY TOOLS 
More from OpinionDemocratic senators are giving President Bush payback for the high-handed way he treated them in the minority by dawdling on his nominations to federal agencies and the judiciary.
Another reason is that it's natural for the opposition party in the waning days of a presidency to try to run out the clock on nominations in hopes its own candidate will fill them. This might be emotionally and politically satisfying, but it's bad government.
According to The Washington Times, since the Democrats took over the Senate in January, Mr. Bush has sent 229 nominations to Capitol Hill and only 84 have been confirmed.
Some of the vacancies are relatively senior — secretary of the Army and undersecretaries and assistant secretaries at Energy, Defense, Treasury, Homeland Security and Labor, but some are further down in the bureaucracy where the actual business of government gets done. With jobs left unfilled, the pace of government slows down, programs get delayed and decisions go unmade.
The vacancy situation could become critical because toward the end of a presidency the pace of departures picks up and it is harder to find people willing to sign on for a job that may only last 17 months. The confirmation process badly needs reform. Even in good times, it takes the White House too long to make nominations and the Senate too long to say yea or nay.
The president can get around the nomination process by waiting until the Senate is in recess or between sessions and then making a recess appointment. But these tend to irritate senators touchy about their prerogatives; the appointments only last until the start of the next congressional session; and in some cases recess appointees aren't paid.
Whatever the Democrats' problems with Mr. Bush, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay for them with less effective government.
Posted by shaver_one on July 10, 2007 at 3:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think the Congress should tell Bush that their deliberations will take "until the end of next year." That is, afterall, what Bush is telling us about the most recent studies and reviews he has undertaken.
If he wants to dump all of the problems he has caused on the next president, then the decisions as to who serves the government should be given to the next president. Fair is fair.
The government isn't working now, so an additional 17 months won't make any difference.
shaverone.blog.com
(Requires free registration.)
Article discussions on this site are to support community debates of issues related to our stories and editorials.
Discussions should not stray from the subject of the story or editorial.
We do not allow the following:
We reserve the right to delete threads and/or ban users for these or other reasons we deem necessary.
Opinions are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.