One person really shouldn’t be able to have more than one Executive branch job.
For one thing, how could you manage?
There’s no way Mulvaney (or Grinell or any of the others) is actually doing a good job in all of their posts; or even any of them.
(Not that they’re trying very hard to, I suspect.)
Now, many Executive branch jobs can probably be done without.
At least, temporarily and when necessary.
So the fact that Mulvaney is technically holding three (or more?) of these jobs isn’t the end of the world. They’re just executive positions, and just like in the business world those are mostly seat-filling with some percentage of final decision-making on the side.
If you’re gonna have a heirachy, somebody has to be at the top of it, but for the most part it doesn’t really matter how engaged they are and whether they’re even paying attention.
The organizations would limp along without an active or engaged person in those roles.
No, the real risk is corruption.
By allowing one person to hold several Executive branch jobs, you drastically cut the number of people needed to pull … something … off.
And that, in turn, drastically increases the chances of getting away with … anything.
Fewer conspirators == fewer chances of leaks or mistakes.
I suspect this administration has already noticed that correlation …
(Since there’s really no other reason to double- or triple-up on the “acting” appointments like this.)
This one really, really should have been fixed long ago.
But for some reason the political class is enamored of “norms” and has been happy to drift along without actually fixing this for centuries.
And now that’s come back to haunt us in a big way.
Depending On Norms Is Dangerous.
