“Tesla fired hundreds of workers this week, including engineers, managers and factory workers,” reported Louis Hansen of the San Jose Mercury News. “Little or no warning preceded the dismissals,” which came after performance reviews, as the company struggles to produce its Model 3 sedan, for which 450,000 customers are waiting. Overall, Tesla showed the door to as many as 700 employees. Taxpayers would be hard pressed to find similar action in government at any level, despite disastrous performance.

In 2015 the federal Environmental Protection Agency spilled three million gallons of toxic wastewater in southern Colorado’s Animas River. EPA boss Gina McCarthy did not lose her job, and few if any EPA managers were fired over the massive spill. As we noted, for years the EPA kept on staff “policy advisor” John Beale, who performed no work for the agency and claimed to be working for the CIA. The EPA even paid Beale retention bonuses, but no EPA bosses lost their jobs over his fakery.

The federal Social Security Administration paid out more than $1.5 million to ex-Nazis, including death-camp guards and SS soldiers. At least 38 of 66 Nazi guards removed from the United States were allowed to keep their Social Security benefits and only 10 were prosecuted for war crimes in Europe. Reports have not emerged about Social Security bureaucrats losing their jobs for keeping the Nazis funded.

In 2013, the Internal Revenue Service handed out between $13.3 an $15.6 billion in improper payments. Even so, taxpayers will be hard pressed to find a report of any IRS employee or manager being fired for this massive waste and fraud. Indeed, the intrusive federal agency also gave $2.8 million in bonuses to employees with disciplinary and tax compliance problems of their own.

If motorists don’t like cars produced by Tesla, they can buy a Ford, Toyota or Kia. Taxpayers, on the other hand, have no choice but to deal with the IRS, EPA, and the whole federal bureaucratic establishment. If President Trump is serious about “draining the swamp,” he needs to take a cue from Tesla and fire those who fail to perform for the people.