Thursday on the RCP podcast, RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann joined host Andrew Walworth to talk about Wegmann’s latest reporting on how President Trump wants to change the way senior government officials are evaluated and compensated: ‘No Participation Trophies’: Trump Revamps Performance Reviews for Top Bureaucrats “Performance reviews are about to get a lot more difficult for the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, the executives who are usually one level below a political appointee such as a cabinet secretary,” Wegmann reported. “The White House is letting these folks know, about 8,000 senior executives, that performance metrics are going to get much stricter.” “They’re making pretty good money. The salary range is between about $ 180,000 and $ 240,000. There are 8,000 of them, and the overwhelming majority live in Washington, D.C. This is the definition of elite, entrenched bureaucracy. The irony here is that in these performance reviews, 96% are getting high marks, and yet the American public increasingly doesn’t have trust in government.” “They are proposing a new rule where only so many folks will be above average, which has all sorts of ramifications for bonuses and promotions,” Wegmann added. “Trump’s argument is that if the bureaucracy is in charge, we no longer live in a democracy, we live in an administrative state.” “These guys are in every single agency,” Wegmann said. “The Senior Executives Association is a bit of a trade group for government employees. They’re here in Washington, D.C., and they are of the opinion-not one that I think is held by most Americans-that folks in these government jobs are there solely because of merit. The administration clearly doesn’t believe that.”
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