The red tape involved in firing federal employees is so bad that the government hasn’t even been able to fire employees who were caught watching up to six hours a day of porn at work.

A recent report from CBS News finds that government employee unions and civil service rules make it almost impossible to fire employees, and it’s costing the taxpayer big bucks.

In one instance, CBS found an employee who had 7,000 pornographic files on his office computer and was tracked sometimes spending up to six hours a day watching porn at work. But this employee is still being paid as his years-long appeals process continues.

In other cases, abusive or troubled employees remain employed even after caught sending threatening emails to other employees and bosses.

CBS correspondent Don Dahler noted that the rules were originally meant to protect government employees from unfair political firings, but now make it nearly impossible to fire any employee at all with an appeal process that can take two years or more to carry out.

“There is a big difference between trying to protect against [political firings] and what we have today,” Partnership for Public Service president and CEO Max Stier told CBS.

In fact, Stier says that the warped system costs taxpayers hundreds of millions as employees continue to get paid as they sit on leave and as advocates, government officials, and the appeals processes grind on.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, supports legislation to correct the problem.

“We’re going to pass a series of pieces of legislation that deal with some of these specific things, like pornography, but, at some point, it’s just common decency and a recognition that if you’re not doing your job and you’re creating a hostile work environment, you gotta go,” Chaffetz said.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter: @warnerthuston. Email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.