WASHINGTON — “Washington is still operating as if it's March 2020. The headquarters of most agencies remain largely abandoned,” Sen. Joni Ernst wrote in a report released Thursday that paints a dystopian picture of the federal workforce inside the vaunted beltway.

It’s been nearly five years since COVID knocked on America’s door. Most schools and businesses opened up years ago. But federal government operations in Washington, D.C. are behind the flyover states.
Because of COVID, President Joe Biden campaigned from home in 2020. But after American classrooms and businesses reopened, Biden has been a frequently absent executive since he took the oath of office. Ernst figured Biden “was out of office 532 days over the last three-and-a-half years, about 40 percent of the time he was expected to be in the Oval Office.”
The no-show mentality has filtered from the top down.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin didn’t bother to inform Biden when he was hospitalized for days. Defense Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks ran the Pentagon while on a beach vacation in Puerto Rico. Moscow and Beijing must be gleeful.
In the past, when partial shutdowns shuttered agencies and curtailed services because Congress was dithering, instead of passing funding measures, the press went into overdrive with warnings of dire consequences.
But when agencies that are supposed to serve the public — inspecting baby formula, screening calls from veterans who desperately need mental health services, processing student aid applications — don’t have enough working staff, Americans don’t get time off from paying taxes.
Ernst is a founder and member of the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) caucus that is preparing to go after the worst abuses in the federal workforce.
According to Ernst, “the nation’s capital is a ghost town, with government buildings averaging an occupancy rate of 12 percent.”
The Biden administration has been in no hurry to get federal workers back to the office — to the displeasur...