“When somebody does a bad job, I fire them,” said former President Donald Trump during his recent debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
On the other hand, “They never fired one person. They didn't fire anybody having to do with Afghanistan,” Trump said, referring to the Biden-Harris administration. “Look at the economy. Look at the inflation. They didn't fire any of their economists. They have the same people.”
Although Trump’s comment about the Biden-Harris administration’s propensity to not fire incompetent officials who have screwed up royally over the past four years did not garner the attention it rightfully deserves, it certainly struck a chord with me and many more Americans.
For far too long, hard-working Americans have watched as government bureaucrats and high-ranking officials routinely get treated with kid gloves instead of being held accountable for their laziness, incompetency, or whatever else prevents them from being good at their job.
Perhaps the public sector attracts workers who are not supremely confident in their abilities to make it in the private sector. From my experience as a public high school teacher for many years, I strongly believe this to be the case for at least a large percentage of those who choose to work for the government rather than seeking employment outside of the public sector.
However, I believe the notion of not holding people accountable when they do not perform to expectations is a much larger societal problem that has been festering for a very long time.
When I was growing up in the mid-1990s, the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality was just beginning to take shape. I remember tryouts for little league baseball wherein we were told beforehand that nobody would be cut. Everyone would make the team, lest we hurt someone’s feelings and potentially scar them for life.
While I understand that children are emotionally vulnerable and nobody wants to get cut from a sports team, this mentality has metastasized far beyond its original intention of trying to make little kids always feel good.
While teaching at a public high school in the mid-2010s, I was shocked to see that the everybody gets a trophy mindset now means that students cannot fail, even when they do not do the bare necessities that are required to receive a passing grade. Time and again, I was told by my superiors that any child who “fails” is an indictment of my teaching abilities, not the unwillingness of the student to study and do their work.
However, in what can best be described as cognitive dissonance on steroids, the teacher union took the same basic stance when it came to all teachers. In general, the teacher union would move heaven and earth to prevent any teacher from being held accountable for not being good at their job.
Of course, we all know that it is almost impossible to fire government employees. But this should not be the case. During his term, President Trump issued an executive order designed to make it easier for the executive branch to get rid of bad employees. However, President Biden made sure that Trump’s executive order was short-lived when he signed his own executive order intended to further protect federal government employees from being held to account when they fail to perform their job effectively.
Nowhere is this more concerning than the situation with the Secret Service, which failed to properly protect Trump in mid-July while he was holding an outdoor rally in Pennsylvania.
Incredibly, it’s been more than two months since that dreadful day, and not a single Secret Service official have been fired for cause. A handful have resigned, but they will still receive their full pensions and go on as if nothing happened.
Unfortunately, the notion of firing poor employees has also transcended to the private sector in recent years. I cannot help but think that the COVID-19 pandemic, and its effect on the workplace, has fueled this to some degree.
Before the pandemic, working in person in an office was the norm. Not anymore. Now, with people “working” from home five days per week, there is much less accountability. The entire notion, espoused mostly by younger Americans, that work-life balance is paramount is laughable.
Hard work is good. It builds character. It also brings dignity and builds one’s confidence. I fear that these values are being lost as more and more employees try to do the bare minimum with little fear of repercussions.
In all workplaces, whether they be public-sector or private-sector, basic expectations ought to be met. When those expectations are not met, those people should fear for their jobs. This is not meant to scare employees, it is a basic tenet that benefits everyone. Workers who do not possess the requisite abilities to exceed or who choose not to do what is expected ought to be fired so that they can adjust accordingly or pursue different endeavors.
Ironically, keeping people in jobs to which they are not fundamentally qualified for or have proven incapable of executing is a disservice to all. Just like getting cut from a sports team should cause a child to consider another sport or simply practice more, the same rings true for adults, especially those in government, who have been coddled and insulated from accountability for far too long.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.