Last month Delaware's Senator John ("Whispering Willie") Williams exposed an uncommonly neat and nasty device for subsidizing federal jobholders at the expense of the taxpayers. In the Office of Rent Stabilization in 1950, he learned, 53 hand-picked employees had been invited to be "fired" and pick up checks for accumulated leave. Then, immediately, they were rehired for the same old jobs on a temporary basis. Later, all were restored to the permanent rolls with a second bonus for leave earned while on temporary service. The fire-hire racket cost the taxpayers $123,966.51.
Last week Williams added a shocking footnote to the case. During...
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