This article explains how Congress' 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) was marketed as bringing efficiency and accountability to the federal government but instead led to a 44-year (1978 - 2022)/$30+ trillion debt spike that the last 7 Presidents (Reagan - Biden) and 22 Congresses (95 - 117) did alone create, unconstitutionally! That is because Congress' 1978 CSRA had a secret and undemocratic intent, to permanently eliminate both parties' whistleblower problem, with dire consequences, like a 2008 economic crisis, a $30+ trillion debt spike, soon to be a major depression, and unless both parties are forced to change their 44-year-old wrongheaded and unconstitutional direction of the U.S. government.
Both parties' unconstitutional success story changed our Forefather's government service (GS) non-partisan/qualified civil servant executive branch into today's fully employed 2.1 million partisan/ unqualified GS civil servants and their politically connected contractors. Then, both parties used their partisan/unqualified GS civil servants to rubberstamp the procurement of their politically connected contractor's deficient corporate goods/services using the American peoples wasted $30+ trillion tax dollars. Then, their ill-gotten bootie was redistributed back to Congress/their lobbyists and 7 Presidents/their political appointees, under the pretense of a strong economy and not for what it is, a federally sponsored deregulation, privatizing, and outsourcing scam, also the root cause of today's untenable debt increases, high inflation rates, and America's growingly valueless dollars.
Whether this U.S. government collapses, survives, or even thrives again now depends upon both the American people's and Congress' newly elected 118th 81 member's ability to force that change or its collapse is not a question, but when, and for one reason. Just as a corporation could not exist with crooked/unqualified staffs and managers, neither can a U.S. government with 2 crooked parties that have outsourced Congress lawmaking duties to crooked lobbyists and the President's executive branch duties to his unconstitutional 2.1 million partisan/unqualified GS civil servants and both parties also crooked contractors. The below information explains why this U.S. government no longer qualifies as a democracy, is unsustainable, how both parties hid their lawless acts by abusing their secrecy policies and providing Wikipedia with inaccurate information to support Congress' (lawless) 1978 CSRA law. The challenge (now) is to work together to create a better and stronger democracy, this time publicly, and no longer in the dark/dingy backrooms of both parties and their corporate cronies' offices, to now undo what both parties have already done, unconstitutionally.
Both parties' other inconvenient political truth is that they also had no legal excuse for allowing Congress' passage of its 1978 CSRA because our Forefather's 1883 Pendleton Act and United States Civil Service Commission (USCSC) had protected whistleblowers, the American people's democracy, and only because the USCSC was not under the President's control (the executive branch). So, after President Nixon had Ernie Fitzgerald/page 2, an Air Force civil servant whistleblower, fired for exposing a $2.3 billion cost overrun, Mr. Fitzgerald appealed his case to the USCSC and won that case, only because the USCSC was not under President Nixon's control.
After President Nixon's 1974 political demise, a Nixon-era/Malek Manual/page 1 inaccurately records that "The Malek Manual resulted in the 1978 CSRA (law)," when Ernie Fitzgerald had already proven that there was no need for Congress' 1978 CSRA. A Nixon-era/Malek Manual/page 2 also records President Kennedy's and Johnson's growing disdain for disloyal civil servants, aka whistleblowers, how to eliminate them, and why both parties needed Congress' 1978 CSRA to illegally end their "political" whistleblower problem. A whistleblower website, Restructuring the U.S. Government, confirms the accuracy of this statement, and includes 47 named whistleblowers, who were retaliated against, demoted and fired for telling the truth, also why both parties abused their secrecy, Espionage Act, state secrets privilege, confidential business information (CBI) policies. Then, both parties continued the downward spiral of the American people's, democracy by unconstitutionally: (1) giving each President more levels of political appointees, and (2) destroying the USCSC, also explained in the next 2 paragraphs.
"Congress' 1978 CSRA gave the last 7 Presidents/all future Presidents managerial positions of power/authority that never existed in our Forefather's democracy. That is, in addition to the 1883 Pendleton Act's 1 level of political appointees, Congress' 1978 CSRA gave later Presidents access to 2 more levels of partisan/unqualified political appointees, and now 3 levels of political appointees (thugs/enforcers), in 2 ways. First, Congress' 1978 CSRA created a 2nd level of partisan/unqualified senior executive service (SES) political appointee managers that were permanent, and carried over from one President to the next to retaliate against, demote, and fire GS civil servants for political reasons. Second, Congress gave each President the option of undermining our Forefather's 1883 Pendleton act by changing their highest GS-15 non-partisan/ qualified mangers to political. per David E. Lewis' book, "The Politics of Presidential Appointments" to create a 3rd level of political appointees. "Then, Congress divided the USCSC's duties/page 2 between 4 executive branch entities, now under the President's control, that Congress and the last 7 President's 3 levels of political appointees did then unconstitutionally decimate, per the next paragraph.
Congress defunded its newly created Merit Systems Protection Board and then looked the other way while all 7 presidents decimated the remaining 3 executive branch entities, as follows: (1) Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by deleting the minimum college degree requirement from the professional position standards for electrical engineer, accountant, auditor, information technology (IT) civil servants, and no way of knowing how many other (once) professional civil servant positions. (2) Office of Special Counsel (OSC) by either ignoring/trashing the whistleblower cases against those presidents. (3) Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) by violating the legal FLRA rights of federal unions and civil servants, by President Ronald Reagan when he fired striking air traffic controllers, and by later presidents, as well. 9 FDA scientist whistleblowers said it best in a letter to President Obama claiming corruption within the FDA where their honest (non-partisan and qualified) civil servants now feared their dishonest (partisan and unqualified) civil servants, that he ignored, as did President's Trump and Biden.
Another whistleblower website, within the RUSG website, details how the last 7 Presidents and 22 Congresses also undermined a 1987 civil servant led effort to accurately account for each federal budget, aka the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements (CFSs); these CFS deficiencies were also covered-up by both parties' crooked contractors. 2 examples include Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) and KPMG's auditors. GAO's March 2021 testimony to Congress and President Joe Biden confirms that GAO's audits could not certify the accuracy of one of the President's (executive branch) 25 federal budget totals (CFSs), as legally required by Congress' 1990 CFO Act, starting in 1997, also the most basic fiduciary breach of faith to the American people! GAO's August 2022 testimony then illegally undermines Congress' own 1990 CFO Act by redelegating the President's/Congress' fiduciary duties to their political appointees and Congress' lobbyists.
This is also why the American people and Congress' newly elected 118th 81 members cannot ignore the need to depoliticize all 3 government branches that the last 7 Presidents and 22 Congresses (95 - 2022) created to allow/support their lawless/unconstitutional acts, as follows: (1) Congress/their lobbyists write corporate-friendly laws. (2) each President's 3 levels of partisan/ unqualified political appointees (thugs/enforcers) changed the executive branch from non-partisan/ qualified to partisan/unqualified, not unlike Putin's Russian dictator, but now under the pretense of an American democracy, and (3) the judicial branches' U.S. Supreme is now also controlled by corporations/politicians, per its Citizens United decision, and that now even covers-up each President's lawless/questionable actions, like hiding President George W. Bush's national security blunders.
There is no way to describe what happened to the American peoples' democracy over these last 44-years other that for what it is, legalized crime, and that was driven by the last 7 Presidents and 22 Congresses. And, there is also no credible way of ending these untenable debt increases without ending the root cause of these trillion dollar debt spikes, as follows: (1) change 2.1 million partisan/unqualified GS civil servants back to non-partisan/qualified to end the procurement of deficient corporate goods and services, (2) fire both parties politically connected contractors who are providing valueless/harmful corporate goods/services to both the U.S. government and the American people, and (3) depoliticize all 3 no longer democratic branches of the U.S. government.
The challenge is this! Absent a Constitutionally required 1883 Pendleton Act's non-partisan/ qualified GS civil servant executive branch, America's politicians are both the perpetrators and the victims of their own misinformation, like a strong economy vs. a 44-year-old/$30+ trillion federally sponsored deregulation, privatizing, and outsourcing scam! This is also why the above noted 47 whistleblowers, with their technical backgrounds as scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, IT specialists, accountants, auditors, contract specialist, etc., are an invaluable resource for 2 reasons: (1) expose the truth with their stories and question why their whistleblower stories were covered-up and/or ignored over these last 44-years, and (2) why President Joe Biden, Congress' newly elected 118th Congress, and whistleblowers must now work together to identify the checks/ balances needed to both end these untenable debt increases and chip away at this $31+ trillion debt total. A good starting point for these discussions between President Joe Biden, Congress' new members, and those whistleblowers has already begun, and defined in the RUSG's companion website's Taxpayers for Government Accounting Reform's Government Reform page.
This effort must also begin with the realization that Congress' 2 top/down/repressive civil service reforms must be replaced with a 3rd civil service reform and a bottoms/up more democratic form of government to: (1) recreate our Forefather's non-partisan/qualified GS civil servant executive branch to end the procurement of deficient corporate goods/services, and (2) use that non-partisan/ qualified executive branches' civil servants to then speak truth to power by now legally questioning: (a) Congress' laws, (b) the President's/their political appointee's actions, and (c) any of the judicial branches' decisions (as well) that impede those civil servant's ability to protect/defend the Constitution, their (and their citizen's) rights and best interests, also to prevent the waste of their (and their citizen's) tax dollars, now estimated at 50% of each $4+ trillion federal budget, and this time with real money (audit) trails!
(Article changed on Feb 15, 2023 at 7:44 AM EST)