Seneca Falls, for one, could use the surge

leaving Columbia

Glenn Reynolds has a brilliant idea published in USA Today: drain the D.C. swamp by transferring federal workers to the hinterlands.

So here’s my plan: During the next four years, the Trump Administration — and Congress — should plan to move at least 25% of the federal workforce located in the Washington, D.C. metro area to other locations around the country: Places that are economically suffering (which will have the advantage of making federal workers’ salaries go farther) and that need the business. Should Trump get another four years, he should do it all over again.

That would mean that in 8 years, the population of bureaucrats in the Washington, D.C. metro area would be roughly halved. That would make Washington less vibrant, but more affordable — and those bureaucrats working out of offices in the hinterland would be brought closer to the American people.

Drain the swamp? Well, it’s a start.

I would expect fully half of those young progressive who've flocked to Washington "to serve the people" would quit their job long before the train dropped them off at the Seneca Falls station (that's assuming Sneaky Falls has a train station; I don't believe it does) to begin their new life among the people they so despise yet yearn to rule. And that'd be great: the Democrats and their union allies could hardly complain about layoffs, and what politician will admit that life in North Dakota, say, is any worse than life in D.C.? 

The F.B.I. has long had a history of punishing errant agents by shipping them off to places like Bismarck and Minot, but this wouldn't be punishment, it would be an opportunity for federal workers to lower their cost of living, breath fresh, wholesome air and even take field trips to liberal shrines like Standing Rock Reservation.

Perfect.