“You’re not going to want to take a [Cabinet] secretary and necessarily move them to Youngstown,” Ryan said. “The headquarters may need to remain at Washington, D.C., but what backroom operations, what agencies within the department could be located in [another] city?”

The broader idea has bipartisan support, even though Ryan, who is most recently famous for trying to unseat Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the House Democrats, has yet to find any co-sponsors for his bill. Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, the retiring chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, introduced a resolution in January that called for the relocation of federal agencies.

“Government needs to be closer to the people it regulates,” Chaffetz said. “Housing federal agencies in a city with one of the highest median incomes in the United States is not only expensive, but keeps federal bureaucrats in an economic and political bubble that offers a distorted view of the realities facing this country.