During the storied 2016 Presidential campaign, then-candidate, Donald J. Trump issued an objective considered both timely and intriguing. He sought to “drain the swamp.” In effect, he called for siphoning power from Washington, D.C. Senators Josh Hawley(R-MO) and Marsha Blackburn(R-TN) followed up, introducing legislation, “Helping Infrastructure Restore the Economy (HIRE Act).” The HIRE Act would move most federal agencies out of Washington, D.C. into economically distressed regions across the country.
Senator Hawley is an outspoken advocate for USDA’s moving two sub-agencies to the Kansas City area. “Every year Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars fund federal agencies that are mainly located in the D.C. bubble. That’s a big part of the problem with Washington: they’re too removed from the rest of America. The HIRE Act will move policymakers directly into the communities they serve, creating thousands of jobs for local communities and saving taxpayers billions of dollars along the way.” Hawley opined.
According to Senator Blackburn, “Moving agencies outside of Washington, D.C. both boosts local economies and lowers costs – that’s a winning combination. This legislation would enable Americans across the country to have greater access to good jobs.”
President Trump immediately recognized that the HIRE Act was consistent with his agenda. It was subsequently determined that Grand Junction, Colorado would be the ideal headquarters for the Bureau of Land Management.
Preliminary plans for the move commenced. An impressive new building was renovated and upgraded, with 41 employees relocating to Grand Junction. Then moves ground to a halt. Some 287 agency employees retired or moved to different positions. One hundred positions remain vacant. The Grand Junction Sentinel called the entire exercise, “a letdown.”
Democrat Apparatus Prefers Washington Control
At the center of the holdup is the Democratic Party. After meeting with the transition team, the Biden Administration recommended returning the agency to Washington. It stands as another exhibition of “politics as usual.” Even though the move made total sense from a work standpoint, there was the usual resistance to change.
Colorado Senators, Michael Bennet, and John Hickenlooper, both Democrats, want the agency to stay in Grand Junction permanently. They explained. “It simply makes sense that the public servants who manage our public lands should live among the natural resources they oversee.”
There were dissenters, especially among environmental activist organizations. One, calling itself “The Climate 2021 Project,” outlined numerous changes it wanted at the Interior, including the proposal the new president should “bring BLM national leadership back to Washington” on day one.
These groups insisted that it would “boost employee morale.” A widely circulated article in Government Executive argued that BLM leaders must be in D.C. in order to communicate with Congress and the White House.
Congresswoman Lauren Boebert suggested that those employees who had come west were delighted with the move. From a facility standpoint, the proposal to return to D.C. amounted to a return to cramped Washington quarters. The Grand Junction space was reportedly an upgrade from their previous facility, with the government covering moving costs and providing a $25,000 relocation bonus.
Republicans Have a Counter Argument
Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis was firmly in agreement with Trump, Hawley, Blackburn, and Boebert. He believes some federal agencies, bureaus, and offices should be relocated from Washington, D.C., to other cities and towns around the United States.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., according to FloridaPolitics.com, endorsed the idea, saying it’s “big, bold” and could help “save our country.”
DeSantis, in the New York Post, says, “Too much power has accumulated in D.C. and the result is a detached administrative state that rules over us and imposes its will on us.”
He clarifies in the Washington, D.C.-based newspaper The Hill, “While there are a host of things that need to be done to re-constitutionalize government, parceling out federal agencies to other parts of the country could help reduce the negative effects of this accumulation of power.”
All the aforenamed Republicans agree that the HIRE Act would “bring more jobs and a greater opportunity to pursue different careers to smaller cities throughout the nation.” It would, as DeSantis hinted, “bring the philosophies and values of these communities to our federal bureaucracy functions.”
Decentralization at Odds with Democrats’ Agenda
The original HIRE act called for moving BLM to Colorado, Agriculture to Missouri, Commerce to Pennsylvania, Education to Tennessee, Energy to Kentucky, Health and Human Services to Indiana, Housing and Urban Development to Ohio, Interior to New Mexico, Labor to West Virginia, Transportation to Michigan, and Veterans Affairs to South Carolina.
The present Democrat agenda is at odds with the idea of opening up career opportunities by relocating those departments away from D.C. In short, they argue decentralization of agencies will result in a turnover. In contrast, the counter position reminds us correctly that the proposed relocation sites will be headquartered in more affordable locations and closer geographically to the jobs at hand.
Downplayed is the reality that decentralization translates to less Washington control. In The Unmaking of a Russian, published in 1935, Russian Immigrant, Nicholas Wrenden, wrote of this very issue.
Wrenden witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution firsthand. He concluded that its success was based on the Bolshevik’s ability to centralize all government activities in Moscow. In the end, only 60,000 well-organized, purposeful people gained complete control of a sprawling country that totaled 150 million.
This fact alone should chill any sympathy for housing all federal agencies in Washington. President Trump and others quickly recognized the HIRE Act as the ultimate tool to “drain the swamp.”
