We would like to extend our congratulations to Scott Garrett on the end of his unemployment.

We're relieved that he got a job; otherwise, the laid-off congressman might have become a ward of the state.



Imagine, this man of small government, who opposed an extension of unemployment benefits, aid for Hurricane Katrina victims, faster federal relief after Sandy and even help for the first responders sickened by 9-11, being relegated among the moochers who squander our tax dollars. The indignity.

Senate panel dumps Trump nominee Scott Garrett



Instead, the Tea Partier from Sussex County is pulling himself up by his bootstraps, in a full-time government job quietly created especially for him, during a hiring freeze.

Yep, Garrett, a former Republican lawmaker known to denounce the overreach of Wall Street regulators, has landed a senior role at the Securities and Exchange Commission, policing Wall Street.



The happy details were obtained by Politico through a Freedom of Information Act request. Garrett will earn $215,000 annually in the SEC's Office of the General Counsel, which recently halted any new hires.

That's more than he would have gotten as chair of the Export-Import Bank, a role for which Garrett was just roundly rejected.



After denouncing that lending institution as a source of corporate welfare and "the epitome of crony capitalism," Garrett resigned himself to nevertheless accept a $165,300 salary to sit at its helm -- but was humiliatingly denied by members of his own party, who broke rank to oppose him.

This was after he got kicked out of Congress by voters of the 5th District, largely for his bigoted remarks against gay people.



Now, Garrett, who denounced Donald Trump for his appalling treatment of women but conceded that he would vote for him anyway, is lucky to have friends in high places.

Like the President, who nominated him to head the Export-Import bank that Garrett once said "rewards those with close relationships with Washington bureaucrats," and Vice President, who vigorously lobbied for him.



Alas, it wasn't meant to be. But it seems somebody found a spot for Garrett anyway, at another government agency he routinely questioned. And what greater honor for an anti-government fanatic, than to become a living monument to government waste?

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.