We are embarking on a historic effort to reform the government to bend it to the president's will. This is not the first reform effort, but it may be the first aimed at increasing presidential power at the expense of career professionals.
next presidentsworeTo revive it.”Schedule F”, an executive order that would allow tens of thousands of career civil servants to be removed and replaced with loyal political appointees. His motive is clearly not to improve the functioning of government.
Government agencies are constantly in need of renewal and reform. German philosopher Max Weber advocated for functioning social institutions, but warned of the dangers of bureaucracy becoming:iron cage” is dysfunctional and unable to provide services efficiently.
ofCivil Service Reform Act of 1883Created a nonpartisan professional service dedicated to serving the American people and the Constitution. Their recruitment was to be based solely on merit. That act isstrengthenedIn 1973 under President George H.W. Bush and in 1978 under President Jimmy Carter, who established the Office of Personnel Management.
ofHatch Act of 1939Prohibit public servants from participating in political activities. But we hear MAGA-supporting Republicans constantly refer to federal civil servants as the “deep state” and claim they are intended to undermine the next president.
If reform is needed, and it certainly is, achieving meaningful reform cannot begin without the cooperation of career professionals.
The Clinton-Gore administrationreinventing government” Crusade. Its purpose was to make the government more responsive to the needs of ordinary people. As a result, agency processes have been streamlined, government efficiency has increased, and in many cases, unnecessary regulations have been eliminated.
I was the head of one of those agencies, USAID. And we can attest that the reforms we undertook would not have been possible without the cooperation of our highly qualified staff.
One of our innovations was to reduce the amount of time it takes for a project to go from conception to delivery to the field. It took about two years from planning to implementation.
We wanted to know why, so we asked career experts to walk you through every step of the process. We wrote these steps down on a roll of paper that spanned two conference tables. Career people were completely taken aback by the unnecessary steps created by the bureaucracy and began eliminating many of them. We have cut our schedule in half.
There were many other reforms in the early years of “reinventing” USAID. Bureaus were integrated, foreign missions developed strategic objectives based on actual needs, and results were measured systematically. Vice President Gore presented the agency with an award for its efforts. More importantly, USAID experts helped thwart efforts to eliminate the agency.
The lesson here is clear. Meaningful change can only be achieved in collaboration with career staff. Characterizing them as enemies only breeds rebellion and resistance, and a glut of whistleblowers.
The administrative state is a reality of modern life. We rely on this energy for everything from weather to defense to health care to foreign aid. Most are run by competent and dedicated civil servants. Sometimes we need praise, but sometimes we need to take a hard look at the systems we have created, improve them, and remove unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles.
What they don't need is what the New York Times recently reported about President Trump's “debris festival”
J. Brian Atwood is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson School. He served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Clinton administration.
