Your agency after COVID: What’s next for you?
Once the war against COVID (with 900,000 plus U.S. casualties) is declared to be over, long-time feds know what’s next:
The media will be there of course, second-guessing decisions which, at the time, seemed like the right (or only) thing to do. But first steps will be taken by Washington-based politicians with jurisdictions over the various federal departments, agencies and bureaus involved in the pandemic fight. Those conducting the investigations/witchhunts (choose one) will either be savvy long-time pols who survived the mid-terms or newcomers anxious to make their political bones. Maybe by chewing on career bureaucrats who took orders and are still around to pick up the mess when the fight is won. Or victory at least declared.
The key players are the 500-plus men and women that voters, mostly outside the Beltway, send here — in the form of Senators and Representatives — who then do things that make Washington the most hated city in America. Those politicians spend careers working against the Washington establishment (which exists to be sure, even though 9 of every 10 feds lives, works and votes elsewhere) while hoping to remain here in the Citadel of Bureaucracy as long as possible.
Since both Democratic and Republican administrations had a role in the wins (and losses) of the pandemic battle, each has good reason to pass along any blame to the other side or, lacking that, government “drones.” Career bureaucrats who include some of the nation’s best specialists in everything from medicine, defense and foreign affairs to actual rocket science. Experts aside, many politicians will focus on after-the-fact reconstructions of what people might/could/should have done in their line of work. Even as politicians were breathing down their necks, blocking, challenging actions or withholding or delaying funds, and the work of those assigned to collect the badly needed revenue.
Hearings, probes and investigations will cover half a dozen or more of Uncle Sam’s most important operations: Ranging from the role of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the conditions which triggered the recent lockdown in federal prisons, to the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ medical services, the Social Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection. And the U.S. Postal Service whose top management, at times, appeared to be working to ensure mail service would be slowed. And as always, the role of the Internal Revenue Service, a favorite target of politicians of both parties to represent, to a fault, billionaires in their districts or donor circles who don’t like to pay taxes. Period. The way to encourage that is to cut the IRS budget and workforce. While at the same saddling it with other responsibilities and duties.
Lots of people out there in FedLand have been through this before and survived. But experience and survival skills won’t make this next round easier to bear. Or more effective than earlier political after-action reports or major, in-real-time events.
If you have any thoughts (and understandably want to remain anonymous and employed) about what’s happened in the past, and what you think is coming in the future fire away at mcausey@federalnewsnetwork.com