Friday, December 30th, 2016
Stephan: You have probably noticed that Trump is appointing as heads of agencies people who have made a career out of denigrating that agency. Scott Pruit at EPA being one of many examples. I assume the purpose of this is to further castrate agencies which impede unregulated profit making, whatever the social cost.
I thought about what that would be like: to work for someone who has spent years, decades expressing contempt for you and what you do.
My perspective in considering that question is tuned by six years in Washington, three as a journalist on the outside looking in and examining the government, and three on the inside as a civil servant, a special assistant and speech writer on a senior staff looking out. And I did something that under someone else's name attracted a lot of media attention so that it had a kind of objective reality to me. I lived through Watergate and knew a number of the people involved. Left government because of it.
And I realized I could not work for a man like Trump. It would not be honorable, in my view. And I wondered what the data was on a issue like this, what it looked like across the D.C.government.
Here is some data and a good analysis. What people who only care about profit cannot even comprehend because they are under the narcotic of ideology, is that most career civil servants work very hard, because it is a lot of work administering for 318 million people with a c0nstantly changing Congressional and Executive. Cutting government really just means cutting services. And given American social outcome data, that's a really bad idea.
What we should be doing is setting wellbeing as the priority, not profit, although if you can make a profit creating wellbeing you are welcome to it. I am going to watch what happens in those agencies.
Capitol Beltway DC, evening exodus
Credit: Joshua Roberts / Reuters
Now that Draining The Swamp is back on the agenda—and it definitely is, Donald Trump says—folks who labor in the myriad federal buildings dotting Washington are probably thinking about their options. How will Trump approach the federal government’s 2.5 million federal employees, or the 7,000-odd senior managers who assist political appointees? Will they even want to stay?
Signs point to an exodus. A study published earlier this month suggests that senior civil servants leave in droves during the first year of a new administration. They’re especially likely to quit when the incoming president’s politics are counter to the agency’s own ideological leanings.
And when these leaders leave, they take their experience and connections with them, leaving federal departments worse off.
“The government is a bundle of expertise,” said John de Figueiredo, a professor of law, strategy, and economics at Duke University, who co-authored the study. “When you lose these people who are very senior, we think that could potentially have a detrimental effect on governmental performance.”
The idea that agencies even have ideological leanings might […]
Where will they go? Someone who is not part of the revolving door of top officials and has been in civil service is not a desirable hire for private companies. Many will talk of leaving but most will stay rather than give up their pampered existence..
I have heard this worry for many years— “there will be a retirement exodus” at some or another. — the sky is falling. This is not a problem. When SES people retire it is an opportunity to remake the position to reflect current priorities. And, many do not retire soon enough because club fed is sweet. And, the youngsters are awesome performers more than making up for retirees. For each job opening in my office there are 100+ applicants, the top 30 are all very good.
I agree with you, Mr. Hovland. The benifits of public service are better than almost all private jobs offer. I should know, I had a job with a company that worked as a government contractor and I have never since found a comparable job with as many benifits, even though I tried very hard to do so. I actually quit that job to go for aone with more pay as a computer department head, but had very little benifits, and then that company sold out to a Chinese firm and I was immediately replaced, even though I had an admirable record at that company. I wish I would never had quit the company with a government contract (we made Tantalum capacitors for the shuttle crafts, and pace-makers).
Fewer civil servants mean fewer regulations. As a physician, I have been regulated by teams of civil servants who have nothing better to do than dream up rules and regulations. Do they understand my job? Not at all, but they have the power to tell me what is best for my care. Now, it does not matter what kind of quality of care I perform so long as the paperwork is appropriate. It is also irrelevant that that I am forced to do more in total work with less patient contact time that I have ever had to do. The quality of my care is not a healthy patient but healthy paperwork. This country will benefit from fewer civil servants. The loss of their expertise will benefit countless people. May they go in peace. Good riddance.