The Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters moved from the capital to Colorado in 2020, causing an exodus of leadership. If elected, Trump plans to use the same tactic across more of the federal government.
It’s not a bad idea to decentralize the federal government as a way to make telework pretty much impossible to walk back on, you get a more diverse and representative public service that’s closer to the population it should be working for.
There’s also advantages to the DC metro area being a “company town” in that it attracts interested public servants with particular skill sets. The DC metro area has a huge number of folks not from here, so it’s not like there’s a “DC mindset” at the individual level. And the feds have been pretty good on telework (fed contractors, not so much)
I wouldn’t say that it’s the same as having people from all over the place that keep on living in their community. Live a couple of years in the city and your mindset won’t be the same even if you’re from a rural area. Add to that the door it opens to give good jobs in regions that need them and centralization makes even less sense.
It’s not a bad idea to decentralize the federal government as a way to make telework pretty much impossible to walk back on, you get a more diverse and representative public service that’s closer to the population it should be working for.
But I don’t think that’s Trump’s objective here…
There’s also advantages to the DC metro area being a “company town” in that it attracts interested public servants with particular skill sets. The DC metro area has a huge number of folks not from here, so it’s not like there’s a “DC mindset” at the individual level. And the feds have been pretty good on telework (fed contractors, not so much)
I wouldn’t say that it’s the same as having people from all over the place that keep on living in their community. Live a couple of years in the city and your mindset won’t be the same even if you’re from a rural area. Add to that the door it opens to give good jobs in regions that need them and centralization makes even less sense.