Spoils system reinstated by choice of grant subject.
Clifford Eddy, PhD writes:
After James Garfield’s assassination, the spoils system of granting government jobs was replaced by the civil service system, with merit being the criterion for hiring rather than political loyalty to those in high political office.
[via Wikipedia]
In the politics of the United States, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party—as opposed to a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity.
The term was derived from the phrase “to the victor belong the spoils” by New York Senator William L. Marcy, referring to the victory of the Jackson Democrats in the election of 1828, with the term spoils meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.
…
After the assassination of James A. Garfield by a rejected office-seeker in 1881, the calls for civil service reform intensified. Moderation of the spoils system at the federal level came with the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs were covered under the law initially, the law allowed the President to transfer jobs and their current holders into the system, thus giving the holder a permanent job. The Pendleton Act’s reach was expanded as the two main political parties alternated control of the White House every election between 1884 and 1896. After each election the outgoing President applied the Pendleton Act to jobs held by his political supporters. By 1900, most federal jobs were handled through civil service and the spoils system was limited only to very senior positions.
The separation between the political activity and the civil service was made stronger with the Hatch Act of 1939 which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many political activities.
The spoils system survived much longer in many states, counties and municipalities, such as the Tammany Hall ring, which survived well into the 1930s when New York City reformed its own civil service. Illinois modernized its bureaucracy in 1917 under Frank Lowden, but Chicago held on to patronage in city government until the city agreed to end the practice in the Shakman Decrees of 1972 and 1983. Modern variations on the spoils system are often described as the political machine.
In today’s climate science, merit criteria have been replaced by a spoils system of giving grants to those loyal to the political doctrine of Climate Change caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
The US government claim is that $36B has been spent on climate research. The terms of the resulting grants assured that their recipients would support the entirely political doctrine of anthropogenic origins of climate change.
This has particularly evil implications such as “scientific truth can be sold to the highest bidder.”
We have abandoned a system where govt worker’s first loyalty was to the party that appointed them.
And replaced it with a system in which the govt worker’s only loyalty is to govt itself.
And proclaimed that progress.
The amount of money now moving through the federal system is so vast that eventually it will corrupt even the most well meaning politicians as well as any group (climate “scientists” for example) that feeds at the federal trough. The best solution is to restore political power to the states as originally intended. This means that federal taxation and spending should be reduced while increasing it at the state level. The states need to decide how to spend tax dollars of their own citizens under the watchful eyes of those same people.
Furthermore, federal officials spend WAY too much time in Washington DC. They should maybe meet 4 quarters of the year for perhaps 2 weeks per quarter. The rest of the time should be spent in their home states and districts where they are more accessible to their constituents and less accessible to lobbyists for special interests. Since the states would be taking over more of the fed’s business, federal officials won’t need to spend as much time in DC anyway.
Unfortunately, the only way to bring about something like what I’ve proposed above, would probably be through a convention of the states – difficult to bring about, although provided for in the constitution I believe.
Thanks, Anthony, for the political history lesson. It’s universal.
Federalism would be the cure, who dares?
Considering the amount of green money out there, most of the climate industry double-dips.
And considering the tax credits many “charities” get, its almost a double-double dip. (Canadian reference there)…