The Perspective of a Government Insider
“HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS”
THE PRESPECTIVE OF A GOVERNMENT INSIDER
By R. Dennis Bevans
Please Click Here To Purchase a Copy of The Author's Book
To make my point about government today it’s necessary to briefly reach back in time, and comment that there couldn’t have been a better historical moment to enter government service than just before the Great Society of the 1960’s. President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) soon dominated our political landscape by refining and completing John F. Kennedy’s (JFK’s) vision of a New Frontier. By force of personality, and insider knowledge gained as a U.S. Congressman from rural Texas, LBJ rapidly spun the wheels of legislation that created many familiar social programs we know today, including Medicare.
These programs were never better administered, or devoid of unnecessary red tape than on the day they became effective. But this was not due to those within Congress who wrote or approved words that established well intentioned new legislation. It was largely because your U.S. Civil Service had finally emerged from its own Dark Ages, where nothing much had happened on the domestic policy scene since WW11. Fortunately for LBJ and the rest of us, highly motivated people had already started to answer President Kennedy’s early call for the “best and brightest” to enter government service and accomplish good things. This unique cadre soon became a key part of the team that offered life to words by crafting and staffing necessary complex delivery systems. Would they have answered a similar call from LBJ….who knows! Regardless, the United States soon geared itself to become Camelot without Kennedy…erase poverty, improve social justice, health, and education. Few individuals with political stature raised objections. We assumed we could handle any future problems that surfaced because we always had done so!
Soon legions of new lobbyists and lawyers became a fact of life to assure that everyone who qualified received a fair share of the new federal pie. The Executive Branch (directly controlled by the president) continued to hire staff for implementation. Congressional oversight was also boosted by additional staff, while the lobbyists and lawyers attempted to influence the wording of all the proposed legislation. To accomplish this they focused attention on congressional aids, whose duty is to advise and/or draft text that may eventually become law.
The Executive Branch implements legislation passed by Congress. It does not propose or pass any legislation, but it is the indispensable engine that moves the federal car. When people speak irreverently about “bureaucrats,” or blame them for the complexity or high cost of government they miss that vital fact! In 2011 we are mired in programs that have been piled on top of each other by Congress since the 1960’s. Relatively few of these programs have ever seriously been examined for efficiency and compared for duplication, yet most will continue to be approved and funded each year.
Today every car engine has a computer that stores information about activity levels, and especially about what’s wrong. Service technicians would be lost without that information. The men and women of your U.S. Civil Service are the equivalent of the engine computer. They know past history, what’s wrong, and stand ready to play a positive role suggesting solutions. Program managers and their employees can tell you about duplication and unnecessary paperwork requirements that frustrate employers, state, or local government officials. They can tell you what types of specific changes will improve efficiency and costs, but generally…THEY AREN’T ASKED!
Part of the problem is because all politicians today run against “insiders” and use “bureaucrats” as a standard phrase to conjecture up an image of a dull, uncaring, abnormal individual wearing a green eye shade. To the chagrin of the men and women inside Civil Service this type of sneer has become so prevalent that many of the 4 thousand political appointees of the president (who manage the nearly 4 million members of the Civil Service) initially don’t consider asking them for advice. Most new appointees enter government with a pre-conceived irrational notion about the marginal competence of the average federal employee. The stereotype is not deserved, and by the time their stint in government is completed (about 2 years is average) nearly all appointees carry away a very favorable impression.
Did you know that political appointees are exempt from the usual types of employment standards that always apply to the many individuals they supervise? Every president uses political jobs to reward campaign workers, and populate most senior policy and managerial positions with people who are loyal to their philosophy. This seems to be a fine and reasonable idea. However some of these men and women have never managed a staff, and know nothing about the uniqueness of the Civil Service system. Especially at the start of any new administration this situation often results in months of mutual distrust, and poor policy or personnel decisions with broad ramifications.
Before starting any new federal job all proposed political appointees should be required to attend and pass a course that would be developed and administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Until then presidents have no idea how much damage continues to be done to their own political agenda and Civil Service morale by a combination of inappropriate placements and/or unqualified individuals.
This article is too short to offer the numerous logical no-cost suggestions I developed after spending nearly 30 years in government, rising from clerk to senior level one step at a time inside numerous agencies. However one major opportunity is easily available for every president. Although the number of staff assisting the House and Senate is now quite large, there will never be enough of them to become a broadly effective tool in attacking duplication and unnecessary procedures. And frankly, there aren’t enough committees or days of the year to investigate all the existing programs and topics.
I’d like to tell the president to simply ask members of the U.S. Civil Service to do this programmatic investigation for him in a structured and thorough way. They work with these issues every day, and in my book I explain how to accomplish this task, and get results.
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