I’ve lived and worked in and around Washington DC for twenty years. My first (very short) job out of college was on Capitol Hill. Before that I interned on The Hill and worked for people like Chuck Todd and Billy Bush, among others. After that stretch I lived in the suburbs of Washington mostly away from government but still very much ensconced in “govland” (the land of the federal employee). Then after having enough of the place, my wife and I sold the house and moved seventy miles south where the air was clearer, the people nicer, and traffic mostly not a factor.
It was the traffic that pushed us over the edge. In the Washington DC suburbs people get up at insane hours to schlep into their federal jobs. I can remember looking out of my window on cold winter mornings as my neighbors stumbled out to their cars in the dark. Ahead of them (and me) was a commute, that if everything went right, was at least an hour and ten minutes. If it was raining all bets were off. We’d be staring at red taillights stacked 40 miles deep through windshield wipers for two hours, each way.
It’s an insane way to live.
So when I hear that President Trump is pushing feds to go back to the office I cringe. I’ve worked from home for fifteen years with no problem. It saves time and money. I can’t imagine footing the gasoline bill for a month of commuting in Northern Virginia anymore.
I still go into Washington on a regular basis for meetings. Since Covid my 100 mile drive is much better. It’s gotten pretty bad again as the pandemic thankfully falls back in the rear view mirror, but it’s not as bad as before. It’s still noticeably better. This has a lot to do with my former Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland commuters staying home and working there.
I am for keeping these people off of the roads. It makes sense for all sort of reasons, but really I’m just being selfish. I don’t want them clogging up 95 and 66 on the odd occasion I have to go into our nation’s capital.
But you know what is also good for me (and my fellow countrymen/taxpayers), getting rid of vast swathes of federal workers.
There is a reason why Washington DC has been the wealthiest part of the United States for over two decades. It’s not Silicon Valley. It’s not suburban New York City, it’s DC. Why? Because it is in DC that the wealth of the nation is aggregated and then disseminated to government workers and government contractors. It is the center of the Crony Beast. It is the heart.
Reducing the incredibly expensive federal workforce is (at least) forty years overdue. Our government could operate as it is with a vastly smaller workforce. Many people don’t understand that the bureaucratic blob in Washington is the cronyist entity of them all. And I hate to say this, but it’s true, at least many of the faceless apparatchiks (OK I will admit I know many and they aren’t all faceless automatons, some are very nice) think the YOU work for THEM. They aren’t your civil servant. You are taxable livestock to be shorn and shorn again.
So when Trump says he wants the Feds to come back but offers buyouts to those who don’t want to come back, I have to say that though I don’t think feds need to be on the roads (really almost anyone in an office shouldn’t have to commute with the tools we have now), I see what Trump is doing and I support it. We at ACC have long called for buying out feds who are just hanging on for the paycheck and additional retirement money (funded of course by the US taxpayer). Them leaving is the best for everyone.
Do you really want to be a fed with a once comfy job in this new era? Between Trump and AI it seems like taking the money might be wise. Plus you won’t be clogging up the highway either.