Democrats always come into office with a list and a plan. Republicans don't. So this is a refreshing change.
If he wins the presidency, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would seek to purge the federal government of officials appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and could ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire public workers, Trump ally, Chris Christie, said on Tuesday.
Christie, who is governor of New Jersey and leads Trump's White House transition team, said the campaign was drawing up a list of federal government employees to fire if Trump defeats Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election.
You know Hillary has quite the list. It's about time that Republicans had one.
Trump's transition advisers fear that Obama may convert these appointees to civil servants, who have more job security than officials who have been politically appointed. This would allow officials to keep their jobs in a new, possibly Republican, administration,
Christie said. “It’s called burrowing," Christie said. "You take them from the political appointee side into the civil service side, in order to try to set up ... roadblocks for your successor, kind of like when all the Clinton people took all the Ws off the keyboard when George Bush was coming into the White House.”
"One of the things I have suggested to Donald is that we have to immediately ask the Republican Congress to change the civil service laws. Because if they do, it will make it a lot easier to fire those people," Christie said. He said firing civil servants was "cumbersome" and "time-consuming."
And the agency at the top of the list could not be any more deserving.
Christie also told the gathering that changing the leadership of the Environmental Protection Agency, long a target of Republicans concerned about over regulation, would be a top priority for Trump should he win in November. Trump has previously vowed to eliminate the EPA and roll back some of America's most ambitious environmental policies, actions that he says would revive the U.S. oil and coal industries and bolster national security.
The EPA is one of the most politicized government agencies. It's past time to clean house.