It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.

What am I talking about? Well, the House Republicans put a nasty little twist into the Rules package they enacted the other day. They revived an 1876 rule which allows any member of Congress to slash the pay of an individual federal worker all the way down to a single dollar.

The revival of the Holman Rule was the brainchild of Rep. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who is intent on increasing the powers of individual members of Congress to reassign workers as policy demands.

[snip]

Before the change, an agency’s budget could be cut broadly, but a specific program, employee or groups of employees could not be targeted because of civil service protections.

Republicans and Trump advisers have been quietly drawing up plans since the election to erode some of the job protections and benefits that federal workers have received for a generation, starting with a hiring freeze Trump has pledged to put in place in his first 100 days in office.

Those plans include an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, less generous pensions and a ban on union business on the government’s dime.

This is the party of small government, one employee at a time. Apparently Representative Griffith thinks Congress can manage employees and agencies better than the professionals. So much for civil service protection.

This is the most loathsome set of politicians I’ve ever seen.