Mar. 30, 2023
March 30, 2023 As an SEC employee, this comment file is the most exciting and fun and engaging collection of serious comment letters I have ever read in my purposefully unspecified years at the agency. I want to express my sincere gratitude to the Office of Ethics Counsel for writing this proposal, for the Commissioners to allow this proposal to be subjected to public comment (since SEC internal rules are not required), and whoever else thought that agency employees should have a chance to comment. Without your brave and courageous decision, we would have not had some levity in the face of relentless workload. As the Terminator said Your levity is good, it relieves tension and the fear of death when they are driving back to Los Angeles to try to commit a time travel paradox. I applaud every employee who submitted a comment so far, whether anonymously or using their full legal name. Based on some of the anonymous acronyms, it is reasonable to conclude that agency lawyers have a very sarcastic sense of humor and some of them have been in DC for too long to use clever acronyms fit for third-grade humor. It appears to me that there are a lot of like-minded individuals here at the agencypeople who do not think contracting out essential services are beneficial in the long run for the stakeholders, think not being transparent in decision making is a bad idea, object to a retroactive decision to divest from sector funds previously allowed, etc. I wish there was a way for those of us to gather and have our voices heard together (preferably remotely to cut down on commuting, pollution, and wasted time or perhaps on a community day since we all belong to the same community). Perhaps like an union (who actually represent all of our interests) of some sort. Do you remember in the movie Spiderman (the one with Tobey Maguiresince there are so many of them who all look the same) when the ordinary people on the subway stepped in to defend an unconscious Spiderman? We are stronger when united and weak when they divide us. Whats the first rule of Fight Club? Anyway, as an employee who has worked on rulemaking, I will make this comment as easy as possible to summarize. Sentiment: Against the proposal. Reason: Third-party contractor is an illegal and unlawful outsourcing of core government function. Conclusion: Do as Ross said in the Friends episode The One with the Cop...PIVOT