THROWING IN THE TOWEL

Trump Administration Abandons Effort to Eliminate Federal Personnel Agency

The president reportedly became reluctant to get rid of the Office of Personnel Management after seeing an “obscure” TV program about the government.

The Trump administration reportedly abandoned efforts to close the Office of Personnel Management, a federal agency that acts as the human-resources manager to the government’s 2.1 million employees. According to The Washington Post, President Trump became reluctant to continue his three-year effort to eliminate the agency after watching an “obscure” TV program about the government. Even after his chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others tried to convince him to continue the project, the president stood firm in wanting to keep the agency running.

The original plan was to parcel out the responsibilities of the 5,500-employee agency to the White House and the General Services Administration. Despite bipartisan consensus that the OPM has issues, a bill currently going through Congress punts the agency’s breakup to an “independent study committee”—which is widely considered to be a solution that ends up going nowhere. “The desired outcome of this study is to give [the agency] and its stakeholders a view in on potential pathways for the agency’s future,” OPM’s director of communications told the Post.