People criticize Donald Trump for not “draining the swamp” as he promised, but this will give you an idea of how hard that is.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/va-reinstated-trump-era-fired-employees-report-claims-agency-denies-rewarding-any-grievous-misconduct

Under a Trump-era law allowing for more accountability of federal workers, 4,000 employees of the Veterans Administration were fired for reasons ranging from negligence and sleeping on the job to “grievous misconduct” such as patient abuse.

Now, an investigation by the America First Policy Institute has revealed that the VA failed to attend arbitration with the public employees’ union. Under a 2023 settlement, the Biden-Harris Administration agreed to reinstate 106 fired VA employees and pay 1700 of them a total of $130 million in back pay. It could have been worse: they could have been forced to rehire all of them and pay them $300 million in back pay.

Former Trump VA Secretary Robert Wilkie blasted the Biden Administration for surrendering to the government employees’ union, saying they had let down American veterans and taxpayers. He said, "Those fired for mistreating American veterans should not even be allowed near the VA, much less reinstated."

This is the problem with government employee unions: in the private sector, negotiations are between the workers and the people paying their salaries. In the government, negotiations are between the workers and politicians who benefit from the support of those workers, while the people who pay their salaries – we taxpayers – aren’t even allowed in the room.

Demanding reform of these laws would not be an attack on union workers, as the Democrats and the media would surely frame it. It would be a long-overdue reform to bring both fiscal sanity and accountability to government. Both veterans and taxpayers deserve no less.