Empty Offices, Empty Promises: Joni Ernst’s Tepid Plan To Fix Federal Inefficiency

Senator Joni Ernst, the so-called reformer and leader of the Senate DOGE caucus, has recently launched an initiative to address the outrageous inefficiencies in the federal workforce. Yet, rather than tackle the rampant culture of complacency with the resoluteness this crisis demands, Ernst has, unfortunately, chosen the well-trodden path of incrementalism—a leisurely stroll, rather than the swift kick our bloated bureaucracy so desperately needs.

Let us begin by acknowledging the stark reality: the federal workforce is overwhelmingly absent from their duty stations. In an era where roughly 6% of federal employees show up to their offices on a full-time basis, and if you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%, one could almost believe that the very essence of public service now resides in avoiding work altogether. It is no secret—and Ernst’s own findings confirm it—that a mere fraction of federal workers occupies the miles of empty corridors in Washington. Meanwhile, taxpayers foot the bill for vacant offices, crumbling bureaucratic palaces that serve only to echo the ghosts of the few civil servants who still think “going to work” means, well, actually going to work.

Senator Ernst has correctly highlighted some of the absurdities in the system. Locality pay, for instance, remains tied to an employee’s official work location, not where they currently reside—a system designed, it seems, to encourage a breed of federally sanctioned freeloaders who, by all indications, collect D.C. paychecks from the comfort of distant locales. Ernst points to solutions like decentralizing federal offices—dispersing them to cities like Omaha or Des Moines. I commend the idea, but let’s face facts: this would take years, if not decades, to accomplish. And while the bureaucratic herd is being relocated, we’re still stuck with the same problem: federal employees who simply refuse to come to work.

The Senator’s other proposals, such as linking work-from-home privileges to employee performance, smack of a “business-as-usual” approach. It’s the kind of solution that sounds reasonable to the uninformed ear, but the reality is much more complicated. Do we want our most effective workers at home, isolated and uninspired—or would we prefer they set an example for their colleagues, fostering a culture of accountability in the workplace? Ernst seems to think she can motivate these teleworking federal ghosts with a carrot. Well, I say, it’s time for the stick.

Experts tell us that forcing employees back into the office could have a cleansing effect on the bureaucracy, with anywhere from 20% to 30% of federal employees likely to seek other opportunities if compelled to leave their living rooms and return to their desks. This is a feature, not a bug. We’ve allowed the federal payrolls to bloat beyond all reason, and a mass exodus of the perpetually disinterested is precisely the outcome we need to rightsize a government that has grown corpulent and slow—a government increasingly unresponsive to the people it ostensibly serves.

What Senator Ernst’s efforts amount to is an elegant form of dithering—a softer, gentler kind of RINO half-measure that typifies the very problem with the Republican establishment today. She takes steps in the right direction, but where is the boldness? Where is the decisive action that reflects the severity of the dysfunction? Instead, we get gradualism—bureaucracy to fix bureaucracy—with the implicit understanding that the problem is to be managed, not solved.

It’s no wonder Ernst finds herself in opposition to genuine reformers like Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz. The whisper campaign she’s reportedly running against Hegseth’s appointment as secretary of defense is emblematic of a politician more comfortable in the status quo than with the disruption our federal government so urgently requires. Similarly, her efforts to undermine Gaetz’s candidacy for attorney general demonstrate her wariness of anyone who would dare take an unflinching look at the rot inside our institutions and propose something radical—something beyond the usual excuses and cosmetic changes.

The Department of Government Efficiency, co-led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, is committed to eliminating government waste and inefficiency. Republican Senator Joni Ernst (Iowa) is vowing to work with them to reverse a recent Biden administration deal allowing thousands of federal employees to continue working from home for another five years. “On its way out the door, the Biden admin is locking in telework for 42,000 Social Security bureaucrats until AFTER President Trump leaves office! Unacceptable!” Ernst wrote on X. “I’ll be working with @elonmusk, @VivekGRamaswamy, and @DOGE to fix this ASAP and get bureaucrats back to work.” However, I would advise Musk and Ramaswamy to tread carefully when it comes to Senators like Ernst. She is, in many ways, the archetype of the establishment—a polished face for the GOP’s pragmatic, go-along-to-get-along contingent. And what we need now is not pragmatism, but bold action, swift reform and an appetite for confrontation with the entrenched forces of stagnation.

The studies are clear: remote work—especially on a large, government-wide scale—is a mess. The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research found that fully remote work corresponds with a 10% to 20% decrease in productivity, largely due to reduced collaboration and communication. Forbes has pointed out that remote workers report higher stress and worse sleep outcomes compared to their in-office counterparts. Harvard Business Review has detailed how poor communication in remote settings can cripple team efficiency. The evidence mounts, but still, Senator Ernst dithers.

It’s long past time we stopped accepting half-measures from those in power. The federal government has become a self-perpetuating machine, concerned more with the comfort of its employees than the fulfillment of its responsibilities to the American people. If Ernst’s approach prevails, we will find ourselves mired in the same inefficiencies years from now—only with agencies scattered across the Midwest instead of clustered in D.C. What we need is not dispersion; what we need is accountability. Every federal employee should be at their desk, 8 to 5, just like the millions of Americans whose taxes pay those salaries. And if that means a third of them quit? So be it. Good riddance.

Ernst may think she’s leading reform. But until she understands that reform isn’t about gradual adjustment but about bold, decisive action—until she starts acting like a true ally of President Trump’s agenda instead of obstructing real change—she will remain just another in a long line of Republicans in Name Only, content to rearrange the deck chairs while the bureaucratic Titanic slowly sinks.

Vivek and Elon: beware of false friends in the Senate. The swamp isn’t just the Democrats—it’s any politician who sees the problem, yet fears the solution.

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