These cats just don’t get it.
A local newspaper editorial is lauding the efforts of Allegheny County Chief Executive Sara Innamorato and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to fill 1,000 vacant county jobs and 5,600 state jobs with federal workers who have lost their situations in the Trump administration’s push to streamline government.
“Laid off federal workers could fit into many of those roles,” the editorial states.
They might do just that. But they shouldn’t. At both the county and state levels, those vacancies should not be filled. And those open positions should be eliminated.
Reducing the size of the federal government’s workforce is not an invitation to transfer that bloat to already bloated state or local governments. Instead, it should be the impetus for all governments to trim their ranks.
For government at the county and state level is, generally, too large, too expensive and too dysfunctional to be allowed to continue as is. To suggest anything otherwise is intellectually dishonest and, honestly, daft.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
