Fiorina: Porn-Watching Government Employees Prove Spending Cuts Are Possible
There's dead weight that is in need of trimming within the federal workforce according to Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
Aggressively arguing for zero-based budgeting and cutting government agencies, Fiorina noted it can be done because some government workers watch pornography all day.
"Imagine if you're one of those government employees that works really hard, is trying really hard to do a good job, and the guy next to you is watching porn all day, and there's no difference," declared Fiorina. "Imagine how dispiriting that is. We know that happens all the time."
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The former CEO of Hewlett Packard has criticized porn watching federal government employees on the campaign trail before and said she would be in favor of a merit pay system for federal workers.
Fiorina, who has seen her poll numbers dip in the last month, made the comments on the MSNBC Morning Joe program Thursday. Fiorina said zero-based budgeting, which would reverse the common trend in government that every agency automatically receives an increase, would hold government employees accountable.
"Zero-based budgeting basically means we look at every dime and every dollar that every agency has to justify," she said.
"Part of my message to the American people is we talk about all these big ideas election after election after election, and yet they never happen. We never have tax reform. We never have entitlement reform," added Fiorina.
In recent years and despite little to no consequences, federal government agencies have been dogged by scandals that some agency employees watch high amounts of pornography during work hours and on taxpayer paid devices and computers.
CBS News reported in March on one "top level" employee at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who despite watching two to six hours of pornography daily on his government computer since at least 2010, is still on the payroll.
Bureaucratic rules and regulations are often too complex to fire employees or even merely discipline them.
One Federal Communications Commission employer admitted to surfing porn for eight hours out of the work week out of "boredom."
The Washington Times report says of another Treasury Department employee that viewed more than 13,000 pornographic images in a six-week span. The employee admitted, while he is aware of rules against viewing pornography at work, he does not have enough work to do.
Notable conservative Methodist theologian Thomas C. Oden has said "to be bored is to feel empty" and "meaningless."
"Boredom is an anticipatory form of being dead," added Oden.
In April, the Daily Caller reported on EPA employees who were promoted despite being caught watching porn and sexually harassing women. Alabama Congressman Garry Palmer called the federal environment agency "morally corrupt" and in the business of protecting "sexual perverts."
North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows introduced legislation in February to ban government employees from watching pornography while at their jobs, which reportedly has made it out of committee but has not received a vote yet on the House floor.
"There is absolutely no excuse for federal employees to be viewing and downloading pornographic materials on the taxpayers' dime," Meadows declared in a February 11 statement about the proposed legislation.
Meadows noted that it is "appalling" that congressional action is required to block access to pornography at federal agency work sites. He added that current rules at some federal agencies against accessing porn continue to go unenforced or completely ignored.
