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Because with up to 7 hours of 'executive time' in a day, Trump is just too busy to get these posts filled..This is a strong sign to us & to our enemies, of a gov't that is not functioning well. We spend so much time on Trump's drama...#MondayMorning washingtonpost.com/national/healt…
2-"From the Justice Department to Veterans Affairs, vast swaths of the government have top positions filled by officials serving in an acting capacity — or no one at all. More than two years into Trump’s term, the president has an acting chief of staff, attorney general, defense
3-"secretary, interior secretary, Office of Management and Budget director and Environmental Protection Agency chief. To deal with the number of vacancies in the upper ranks of departments, agencies have been relying on novel and legally questionable personnel moves that could
4-"leave the administration’s policies open to court challenges. The lack of permanent leaders has started to alarm top congressional Republicans who are pressing for key posts to be filled. “It’s a lot, it’s way too many,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said of the acting
5-"positions in Cabinet agencies. “You want to have confirmed individuals there because they have a lot more authority to be able to make decisions and implement policy when you have a confirmed person in that spot.” By any standard, Trump’s administration lags behind its
6-"predecessors when it comes to filling top posts throughout the government — even though the president’s party has controlled the Senate for his entire time in office. The Partnership for Public Service, which has tracked nominations as far back as 30 years, estimates that only
7-"54 percent of Trump’s civilian executive branch nominations have been confirmed, compared to 77 percent under President Barack Obama. “The Trump administration is slower to fill jobs and has higher turnover than any administration we have records for,” said the group’s
8-"president and chief executive, Max Stier. Republicans have largely blamed Senate Democrats for slowing down the consideration of executive branch nominees. But according to an analysis by the Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post, the White House has not
9-"bothered to nominate people for 150 out of 705 key Senate-confirmed positions. Three departments are facing a particularly high number of vacancies: Only 41 percent of the Interior and Justice Department’s Senate-confirmed posts are filled, and just 43 percent of these
10-"positions have been filled at the Labor Department. The third-highest ranking position at Justice — which, like Interior, has been operating without a permanent secretary for weeks — has been vacant for nearly a year, with no nominee in sight. “If you think about our
11-"government as a manager of critical risk, we’ve upped our risk,” Stier said. One particular vacancy senators have fixated on is at the Pentagon, where former defense secretary Jim Mattis resigned in December after clashing with Trump over his decision to begin withdrawing
12-"U.S. troops from Syria. Patrick Shanahan has been serving in an acting capacity since Jan. 1. Some Senate Republicans have lobbied on behalf of potential Mattis successors. In a private phone call shortly after Mattis announced his impending departure, Sen. Joni Ernst
13-"(R-Iowa) urged Trump to nominate Heather Wilson, the current Air Force secretary who would be the first woman to head the Pentagon. “We absolutely need to have a permanent nominee,” said Ernst, a veteran who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I do have great
14-"confidence in Patrick Shanahan, I know he is the acting secretary right now. But I do feel that in order to reassure allies and also to push back on our adversaries, it’s very important that we have a permanent secretary of defense.” Trump does not share the urgency of some
15-"in his party to name permanent Cabinet secretaries, largely because he sees leaving people as interim to his benefit. The president has told others it makes the secretaries more “responsive,” an administration official said.
16-"“I like acting because I can move so quickly,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday. “It gives me more flexibility.” ...
~WaPo, 2/4/19
~WaPo, 2/4/19
