realbureaucrat.bsky.social
Lawyer and current federal policymaker with 10 years’ experience in 3 Departments
22 posts
32 followers
48 following
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Conversation Starter
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Everyone knows the GOP has been taken over by criminals. But the response is going to be a shrug if the opposition doesn’t offer a better deal economically. 2/2
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Wow, incredible stat. Perhaps in the US there are more State and local government employees? The US Govt also employs a lot of contractors and while they can track the spending, it’s very hard to know the headcount.
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Is he serious? Is he thinking about cutting more meat and poultry inspectors? Does he care about Listeria? It’s not clear when they just say big numbers = “bad” and “waste” It’s posturing for political influence, but one comfort is they often don’t understand or believe their own rhetoric. 4/4
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Often, reduced oversight is called “modernization.” Lookup “FSIS poultry modernization“ to see it in action. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s last OMB director, just blithely said USDA has too many employees because fewer people farm than 100 years ago... thehill.com/opinion/whit... 3/4
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They literally look at every livestock animal that we eat, inspecting for proper condition. They test for pathogens and other animal diseases. The massively concentrated meat and poultry industries lobbies consistently for reducing the number of inspectors so they can run their lines faster. 2/4
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The government office that inspects meat and poultry is in the USDA. It’s called the Food Safety and Inspection Service www.fsis.usda.gov. They have nearly 10,000 employees, almost all of them food safety inspectors scattered across the country. 1/4
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I’ll do a lot of posts explaining different offices in a granular way. A lot of rhetoric boils down to: “The govt is big so there must be loads of waste,” then insert warmed-over anecdotes.
But is it really big for a national bureaucracy? Is it wasteful in a meaningful way?
Usually not.
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*Some leaders are political appointees, others are career civil servants. To find out which is which, look up the “Plum Book”! (seriously)
*Each box in this chart has its own org chart! They go deep, down to divisions with maybe 10 people. It seems like a lot but each office has many duties.
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It’s a show for stunted boomers to laugh at their “book smart“ children that they don’t understand.
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There are a lot of incumbents on the other place, even sympathetic ppl, and they have their incentives. But we have ours too!🦸🏼♂️
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What prompts this account is this: The federal government is a BIG ASS ICEBERG 🧊 that people project things onto and profoundly misunderstand. The parts floating above the water get all the attention, and even that rhetoric💙 is busted. I’m going break it down and go deep, so stick around ⛷️ 3/3
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I don’t really want to get doxed at the starting line, but I’ll happily verify my deets to any legit journalist etc. I have over 10 years experience as a “fed” across 3 departments and more time before that in the federal court system. I’m a lawyer and self-declared “org chart enthusiast.” 2/3