We are in the final 50 days of the Biden presidency, presuming he serves until Inauguration Day. Joe Biden has been president for 3 years, 10 months, and 13 days.

According to the tracking database of the Washington Post and the Partnership for Public Service, 103 positions in the executive branch that require Senate confirmation are currently empty and are awaiting a presidential appointment that will probably never arrive until after Donald Trump takes over January 20.

President Biden never got around to naming a director to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; ICE has led by an acting director since 2017. Some Biden appointees left early and were never replaced. Chris Magnus resigned as head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in November 2022; CBP has had an acting director since then. If Biden had wanted to defuse the accusation of neglecting the border and illegal immigration, he might have found someone to nominate to run ICE sometime in the past nearly four years, and someone to nominate to run CBP in the last two years.

Keep in mind, Democrats have controlled the Senate for the entirety of Biden’s presidency, making the odds of confirmation pretty good for all but the worst Biden nominees.

The U.S. hasn’t had an ambassador to Kenya since August 2022, to Venezuela since May 2023, or to Germany since July. Biden never appointed an ambassador to Burma, Bolivia, Colombia, Libya, or Sudan. (When an ambassador is not named, the duties are handed by the “chargé d’affaires.”) The U.S. State Department is also lacking a Biden nominee for the positions of chief financial officer, a chief of protocol, a representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and a head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination.

At the Pentagon, Biden never appointed a replacement for the position of assistant secretary for strategy, plans and capabilities since Colin Kahl resigned in July 2023, and undersecretary for personnel and readiness since Gil Cisernos resigned in September 2023, or a replacement for principal deputy undersecretary for intelligence since Ronald Mouthrie resigned in February.

All over the government, there are acting, unconfirmed officials or the duties of those unoccupied positions have been transferred to other officials.  At the Department of Justice, there are acting assistant attorneys general for the civil division, criminal division, and tax division, as well as the Office of Legal Policy. At the Treasury Department, there are empty slots for the department’s assistant secretaries for economic policy, tax policy, and terrorist financing.

At the Department of Energy, Biden has left open positions for chief financial officer, undersecretary, assistant secretary for cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, or assistant secretary for environmental management.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, Biden has not named an assistant secretary for aging, the assistant secretary of financial resources, or the administrator for community living.

At the Department of Transportation, Biden is missing administrators to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or the Federal Transit Administration.

There are currently no nominees to be the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank, the Federal Maritime Commission, or the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

Biden is missing inspector general appointments to the General Services Administration, NASA, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Social Security Administration, and the “special inspector general for the Office of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.” The TARP, as you will recall, was established in the fall of 2008. It might make sense to not appoint a special inspector general for TARP, but it also might make sense to eliminate the position.

Again, in none of these cases has the U.S. Senate dragged its feet on confirming Biden’s nominee; either Biden’s first appointment has resigned and no replacement has been named, or Biden never appointed anyone to these positions.

Biden boasted earlier this year, “my schedule has been full bore.” He’s seemed to be more of a 6-5 guy than 24-7, but the fact that some administrations positions never got filled over a four-year span is a vivid demonstration that the executive branch is just too large and has too many positions — both ones that require Senate confirmation and ones that do not.

Considering the number positions requiring Senate confirmation that are currently empty – in some cases, never getting anyone even named as a nominee during the entire Biden presidency — the new “Department of Government Efficiency” should ask tough questions about whether these positions should exist at all.