Ever heard of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS)? Can you guess what it actually did? Ostensibly, it acted as a voluntary labor-relations mediator, although other private firms provide the same services. In reality, it became the Elysium for federal bureaucrats, one finally shut down by the US DOGE Service.
“Finally,” because the exalted status of the FMCS had been known for well over a decade. Luke Rosiak published a series of exposés at the Washington Examiner in 2014-15 that exposed the FMCS as a corrupt, do-nothing agency living high on the K Street hog. Rosiak returns now at the Daily Wire not to praise or mourn FMCS, but to ensure it remains buried:
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.
This might be the way that readers believe all federal bureaucrats operate. That’s not accurate in the aggregate — many grind out their days behind painted windows and under fluorescent lights — but taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for any bureaucrats to live this high on the hog. Even Fortune 100 corporate executives would face some harsh scrutiny from shareholders over this kind of wanton corruption.
How did this level of bureaucratic corruption happen? Like a significant number of agencies, it was largely set on autopilot. An “independent” agency, the president only had nominal authority, which went largely unexercised — until Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE:
FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.
This reporter spent a year investigating the agency a decade ago, and I found egregious and self-serving violations of hiring, pay, contracting, and purchase card rules. One thing I could not discover is why the agency actually existed, other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees. Endless junkets to resort destinations, which employees openly used to facilitate personal vacations, were justified as building awareness of the agency in the hopes that someone would actually want to use its voluntary services.
FMCS seemed, quite clearly, to exist for the benefit of those on its payroll, and not much else.
Unfortunately, Rosiak’s earlier exposés at the WashEx are paywalled, so many of the details are not available. However, Rosiak recaps a few highlights in this Daily Wire report, including tidbits about how FMCS employees turned off protections on their government credit cards in order to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal purchases. They hired family members as contractors and employees, and in one memorable anecdote, bought art from a spouse to hang on the walls. Another top official listed his duty station in Iowa even though he lived in the DC area. That allowed him to expense six years of rent and meals “as if he was [sic] on a six-year-long business trip.” And be sure to read about the FMCS luxury digs, too.
How could it be that none of this came to light earlier? Well, it did, but no one did much about it after Rosiak’s series at the WashEx. Barack Obama talked about reforming government, Joe Biden promised to impose it, and neither of them meant it. And it’s not as though other parts of the government weren’t aware; at least one whistleblower came forward. However, the FMCS chief at the time forced the whistleblower to recant when she exposed these practices.
The FMCS should become the poster child in the effort to end the constitutional abomination that is the “independent agency.” Agencies that draw their authority and/or jurisdiction from the executive branch must be fully accountable to the office in which all executive authority constitutionally rests: the President. “Independent” agencies violate the clear lines of responsibility given to the co-equal branches, and largely operate outside the control of any of them. The level of impunity and accountability at FMSC might be an extreme example (although we hardly know whether it’s a unique example yet), but it demonstrates how such constructs lead to the Bureaustate and defeat the structure of rational self-governance through a constitutional republic resting on a federalist structure.
Right now, the Bureaustate is fighting hard to maintain the constitutional abominations of “independent agencies.” It seems doubtful that anyone will try to resurrect the FMSC, but it should be remembered always as a constitutional cautionary tale. Power corrupts, and a lack of accountability and transparency creates Bureaustate gods and Elysiums from which they lord over what used to be a free people. It’s long past time to put an end to it — and them.
