WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s campaign to shrink the federal bureaucracy has reached a milestone: Washington has established a new office to determine why all the offices marked for elimination continue answering their telephones.
The Department of Bureaucracy Elimination Investigation opened with 340 employees, a fleet of government vehicles, and an emergency request for a larger headquarters. Its director insisted the expansion would save money by providing a centralized location from which officials could complain about decentralization.
Government Bureaucracy Reduction Requires Another Department
“We are cutting red tape at an unprecedented pace,” declared Deputy Undersecretary Milton Stapler, standing before seventeen binders documenting how to cut red tape. “Unfortunately, each strip must first receive a tracking number, a supervisor’s signature and a certificate confirming it was originally red.”
Stapler demonstrated the new procedure by eliminating a two-page application. His staff replaced it with a nine-page affidavit explaining why the application no longer existed. The paperwork savings were so impressive that officials immediately ordered another printer.
Trump asked why a government office needed permission from another government office to close. The response arrived as a 600-page report entitled Preliminary Considerations Concerning the Potential Streamlining of Closure Authorization Procedures.
Washington Investigates Why Closed Agencies Still Have Meetings
Auditors discovered that one abolished committee continued meeting every Wednesday to discuss whether its abolition had been properly communicated. Its chairman explained that stopping meetings would create a scheduling gap, forcing members to attend other meetings about the gap.
Another office had eliminated its receptionist but retained a deputy receptionist, assistant deputy receptionist and director of reception modernization. Callers now hear a recorded message explaining that nobody is available to explain why nobody is available.
The administration’s actual executive order on reducing federal bureaucracy calls for eliminating or minimizing specified government functions consistent with law. The Government Accountability Office also examines duplication and opportunities to improve federal operations. Both provide useful material for anyone who believes that government savings should eventually appear somewhere other than a PowerPoint presentation.
Taxpayers Request a Department That Actually Disappears
At a public hearing, a plumber from Oklahoma asked why his business needed to earn money before hiring employees while Washington seemed capable of hiring employees to investigate why it had no money.
“Government operates under a different accounting framework,” Stapler explained. “When your business loses money, you close. When our department loses money, we become eligible for a larger budget.”
The plumber suggested that every agency be required to survive for thirty days without receiving taxpayer money. Committee members reacted as though he had proposed replacing the Constitution with a chainsaw.
Meanwhile, the new department announced its first measurable success: it had identified 27 offices that could be closed. It then created 27 transition teams, 27 review boards and one coordinating council to ensure no two groups accidentally eliminated the same bureaucracy.
By Friday, Washington had fewer official departments on paper and more employees assigned to explain the difference. The director called the outcome historic efficiency.
He then requested a study to determine whether the word “historic” required congressional approval.
Editorial disclaimer: This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings, the world’s oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. The professor says the government cannot reduce paperwork by creating paperwork about paperwork. The farmer says he tried that with manure and ended up with two piles.