The federal government has too many employees. The way the civil service works, this was almost inevitable.
The pay level a supervisor or boss gets in the civil service is related fairly directly to the number of employees he or she has directly and indirectly reporting to him or her. Grow the number supervised, grow the paycheck.
This gives every boss in the federal civil service an economic motive to justify the employment of additional subordinates plus subordinates of subordinates. Having successfully done so, the next step is a reclassification audit with hoped-for upgrade resulting, without changing job or employer.
Given how the system is designed, you’d be amazed if there were not too many employees.
