Is it really so bad to pay Federal workers for doing nothing?

The Washington Post reports that the US Government has spent millions of taxpayer dollars paying tens of thousands of federal workers for doing nothing. These workers have had been charged with some type of misbehavior, and thus have been placed on “administrative leave.” The workers remain at home–collecting a pay check and accumulating sick leave and vacation time–until the government conducts an official investigation into the alleged misconduct and the employees are either cleared of the allegations and return to work or are fired.

News of this story has provoked outrage from numerous political commentators. That is understandable, but are we really worse off paying federal employees to sit at home than paying them to violate out rights? And isn’t the fact that the federal government has thousands of workers on “administrative leave” at any time an indication that the federal government is way too big. Instead of “reforming” the rules regarding “administrative leave maybe Congress should look into shutting down some of these federal agencies.