H. George Frederickson, a professor in the Department of Public
Administration at the University of Kansas, has written a compelling essay
on "Repairing Broken Government." It addresses the need to focus on
competence more than ideology. Noting the familiar list most people make on
the reasons for broken government - the pervasive influence of money in
politics, the power of interest groups and lobbyists, legislative gridlock
and more - Frederickson touches on something of perhaps even greater
importance: "bureaucracy, ineffective management, or poor policy
implementation are central elements of a broken national government."
Instead of "sound-byting," character assassination and sloganeering,
Frederickson calls for "substantive competence (think Katrina)" in
government. He wants more competent people running things and he suggests
the way to make that happen is to amend the Civil Service Reform Act of
1978.
That law, he writes, "added a thick layer of political appointees to the
upper ranks of federal agencies" while the ranks of merit-based civil
servants were reduced from almost 3 million to about 1.8 million. "From the
standpoint of government effectiveness, this has been a deadly combination,"
he says.
Where are the voices of the presidential candidates promising to clean house
of political appointees and replace them, not with political appointees from
their party and persuasion, but with people who know what they are doing?
I care about social issues and the eroding morality of the country, but I
care more about competent government. We are spending more on government
than ever and getting less for our money. A government that can't keep track
of nearly 200,000 weapons during a war does not inspire confidence. Let's
have a little less ideology from the presidential candidates of both parties
and a lot more talk of how to repair broken government.