Bureaucrats Are Good Guys Working to Fix the Broken Economy and Carry Out Tasks Created by the Economic Stimulus Legislation

Why do we allow the corruption of our values, the sale of our tax money for votes, the abrogation of responsibility, and the pillage of taxpayers? Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." The political class with the power to regulate and oppress a subjugated population have, through sophisticated barrages of propaganda, convinced the people to acquiesce to their own enslavement, and we have tolerated it to our own demise.

The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called “near poverty” (coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills), means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work. We increasingly live in Orwell’s Oceania, not Huxley’s The World State. [2011: A Brave New Dystopia, truthdig.com, December 31, 2010]

We have been gradually dis-empowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse. [2011: A Brave New Dystopia, truthdig.com, December 31, 2010]

Federal Work Force to Expand, But Rules Need Overhaul

Originally Published on April 24, 2009

McClatchy Newspapers — For about 30 years, politicians have painted the federal bureaucracy as bloated, unresponsive and impossible to change.

Suddenly, though, the government and its bureaucrats are the good guys working to rescue the broken economy, and Washington is scrambling to find ways to lure and retain talent.

"We're waking up to a moment when the public thinks government really matters," said Linda Bilmes, a professor of public finance at Harvard University.

After all, it's the government that's trying to rescue failing banks, homeowners facing foreclosure, domestic auto companies and the entire American economy.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Federal Workforce Subcommittee, is considering pushing legislation that "tries to cure all the ills in the current system" rather than taking the usual path of incremental change.

He and others are tempted not only by the new mood, but also by two stark realities:

• President Barack Obama's plans are expected to expand the federal work force by hundreds of thousands in missions as diverse as tracking stimulus spending, helping to manage the baby-boomer deluge that's confronting Social Security and increasing the foreign service.


• In addition, one-third of the current 1.9 million-member federal civilian work force is eligible to retire within five years.

As a result, the government will need to hire about 600,000 people during Obama's current term, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group.

For a bureaucracy that's known to take a year or more to hire a single employee, that's a major challenge. Lawmakers are seeking ways to overcome three longtime hurdles: the anti-government mind-set, cumbersome federal hiring practices and personnel retention problems.

President Ronald Reagan helped make the bureaucracy a useful target.

"Government is like a baby," he said in March 1981, "an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

Bill Clinton declared in 1996 that "the era of big government is over."

In his inaugural address, however, Obama struck a different tone.

"The question we ask today," he said, "is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

Changing attitudes in Congress won't happen overnight — some lawmakers rail against the government almost daily — but there are signs of change.

"It goes without saying that working for the federal government is a great opportunity to serve the United States, and should be a source of pride," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, a conservative who's the top Republican on the Federal Workforce Subcommittee.

Members of Congress and experts think that the federal hiring process can be streamlined fairly easily, perhaps even without legislation.

"This is not like trying to find Middle East peace," Bilmes said.

The problem: Job seekers often are stymied when they search for federal positions. Federal job applications often are 10 to 20 pages long, and are "frequently confusing and filled with jargon indecipherable to the average person," said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service.

The group found that hiring a single employee can involve as many as 110 steps, and some applicants wait a year or longer before getting offers. Those who need security clearances face even more hurdles.

John Berry, the new Office of Personnel Management director, offered some hope. Agencies have received instructions on how to hire people within 80 days, and to write job announcements in what Berry called "concise, plain language." The OPM also has made it easier to hire temporary employees to carry out tasks created by the economic stimulus legislation.

The problem in hiring permanent employees, Stier said, often remains the political appointees who control the process. They frequently "don't have incentive to focus on something that may be a long-term solution," he said. What's needed is a legislative push — or prodding from the White House — to streamline hiring standards.

Retaining employees may prove to be even more difficult. The more talented the federal employee, the more easily he's wooed into higher-paying private-sector work.

"The federal government invests great energy, effort and money to train the best and the brightest to work somewhere else," said Donald Kettl, the incoming dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

Bilmes, who co-authored the recently released book "The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service," is concerned about younger workers who've grown up hearing politicians mock the federal system.

They also want work that's flexible, entrepreneurial, quickly rewarded and unshackled by a 9-to-5 office routine.

Many pay- and performance-related incentives are already available, but they often go unused. Patricia Niehaus, speaking for the Federal Managers Association, finds the process "extremely cumbersome," adding that "many managers are also unaware these incentives even exist."

Among the remedies that lawmakers will consider is a system to make pay for good performance easier to implement, and expanding telecommuting, to enable employees to work from home or elsewhere outside the office.

Yvonne Jones, the director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office, cited the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a potential model. In fiscal 2006, she said, about 20 percent of patent examiners did at least some of their work away from the office.

The agency, she found, thought that helped retain and recruit employees and reduce traffic congestion — and it meant three fewer floors of office space.

What's important about such discussions is that policymakers and members of Congress are looking for ways to expand the federal work force effectively and make it more nimble.

It's still a huge task, because, Kettl said, "using the term 'federal personnel system' is a stretch."

However, for the first time in a long time, Lynch said, "We have opportunities now we didn't have before."

Most Federal Agencies Expand Staffs in 2011

President Obama’s ambitious budget and stimulus plans will require the government to hire scores of new workers, the Washington Post reports. Analysts put the number between 100,000 and 250,000 spread among various agencies, the biggest expansion of the federal workforce since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society days. Some agencies are already planning hiring initiatives; Veterans Affairs, for example, expects to add 17,000 to the payroll. The federal workforce has been in decline since Reagan, and many see this as an overdue boost. “We’ve had a government that has been starved,” said the president of the Partnership for Public service. But Republicans will likely complain Obama is expanding government. “What group of socialists got in the room and wrote this budget?” Newt Gingrich asked. - Obama's Plans Require a Lot More Hands Federal workforce could expand by 100-250K, Newser, March 3, 2009

February 7, 2010

FederalTimes.com - The federal workforce will decline slightly in 2011, but most agencies will see their staffs grow next year.

The difference results from the Census Bureau, which will add hundreds of thousands of temporary workers for 2010 for its decennial population count.

The overall federal workforce is projected to decline by about 42,600 in fiscal 2011, but it will remain at slightly more than 2 million people — federal staffing topped that benchmark for the first time this year.

The Defense Department plans to grow its civilian workforce from 720,200 to 757,500, as it insources work now done by contractors.

The Homeland Security Department is also expected to grow from 177,000 employees to 183,500.

The Transportation Security Administration will add 5,355 screeners to run advanced imaging units at airports.

Customs and Border Protection plans to hire 318 new officers for passenger and cargo screening at ports of entry and 103 new intelligence analysts.

Peggy Sherry, Homeland Security's acting chief financial officer, said the department will hire more cybersecurity experts and air marshals as well.

But the department will cut 180 Border Patrol agents through attrition in 2011. Homeland Security said the Border Patrol doesn't need as many agents because its workforce is becoming more experienced and effective.

And the Coast Guard will cut more than 1,100 people from its ranks as it decommissions some old boats and brings new boats on line. Homeland Security said the Coast Guard is trying to reorganize and become more efficient.

The Veterans Affairs Department would grow from 284,300 employees to 287,700. The department said the proposed increased staff and its $11 billion budget increase will help it process more benefits claims, improve mental health care for vets, and fight homelessness among veterans.

The Education, Justice and Health and Human Services departments also plan staffing increases.

The Commerce, Agriculture and Interior departments are the only Cabinet-level agencies planning staffing cuts.

The biggest swing in staffing next year is at the Commerce Department, which will let go of almost 1.2 million temporary census takers — the equivalent of about 99,000 full-time workers.
Is government too big?

Some say the growth in the government's payroll is an unavoidable consequence of the challenges facing the nation — two wars, an ongoing terrorist threat and a troubled economy.

"In no way does this suggest the government is getting too large," said John Palguta, vice president of policy at the Partnership for Public Service. "There are significant workforce needs in the government, and we should be filling those. I think it's a fairly modestly sized workforce, given the nature of their tasks."

But conservative critics say it's a sign that the government has taken on too much, and worry unchecked spending growth will eventually bankrupt the nation.

"We're seeing a permanent increase in the size of the government workforce," said James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation. "Contrast that with what's happening in the private sector. The government is not tightening its belt. It would be better if everybody shared in the downturn, instead of public workers being insulated because Washington is not going to make any cutbacks."

Robert Tobias, director of American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, said the relative size of the federal workforce needs to be taken into context. He pointed to statistics in the White House budget released last week that said the ratio of feds to Americans has dropped from one in 78 in 1953 to one in 155 in 2008.

The administration is estimating the federal work force will have grown by more than 274,000 — or 15 percent — between fiscal 2007 and 2011. And 79 percent of that growth took place at the Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, State and Veterans Affairs departments.

Those agencies "are centrally involved in fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing care for our returning veterans, protecting our country from the threat of terrorism, and advancing our nation's interests forward," the budget said.

Palguta said he hopes Congress adequately funds the government's staffing needs and doesn't catch federal employees in the middle of debates over spending and the proper role of government.

"The starve-the-beast strategy is a very poor strategy [for effective government, and] it helps some people avoid articulating the tougher choices," Palguta said. "Saying we want the government to do what it's doing but with less people doesn't make sense. What's lacking in our dialogue is specifics on ‘OK, what do we not do or what do we cut back on significantly?'"

But vast Clintonesque cuts in the federal workforce would be a mistake, said Bill Bransford, general counsel for the Senior Executives Association.

"Some parts of the government were left underserved," Bransford said, adding he was glad to see the 2011 budget plans to hire more acquisition workers, which he said is long overdue.

After the Clinton administration cut the federal workforce by about 325,000, the government grew steadily during the George W. Bush administration. The last time the size of the federal workforce dropped by more than a few thousand was in fiscal 2001 — after the 2000 census and before the Sept. 11 attacks brought a swift focus to the government's homeland security, war-fighting and intelligence needs.

Tobias said the size of the federal workforce doesn't matter as much as whether it is accomplishing its mission effectively. Arguing about the number of federal workers is a way to avoid asking hard questions about the role of government, Tobias said.

"You can criticize Congress for putting too much on the executive branch," Tobias said. "But once the law is passed and must be implemented, the question is, are we doing it in the most effective manner possible?"

Hiring reforms

The budget also calls for hiring reforms, though it did not spell out new initiatives. Federal agencies take about five months on average to hire a new employee, and many talented job candidates lose interest and accept jobs elsewhere during that wait.

The White House said it will announce later this year new strategies for recruiting and assessing candidates and will propose regulatory and legislative changes to further streamline the hiring process. The Office of Personnel Management wants 80 percent of agencies to cut hiring times by September 2011, and to improve satisfaction for job applicants and hiring managers.

Three-track path to federal workforce to replace popular internship program

Obama Proposes Expanding Acquisition Workforce

February 1, 2010

Federal Computer Week - The acquisition workforce is one of the few areas of federal employment the Obama administration wants to expand, an official said today.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the number of contracts and government spending has doubled, but the acquisition workforce, which includes employees who handle the work of developing a contract’s requirements, reviewing bids and awarding contract, has had little growth.

“It's not too hard to figure out that oversight of those contracts has not kept pace with what it should be,” he said at a press briefing on the fiscal 2011 budget proposal.

In 2000, the government had 26,751 contracting officers and the number had grown to only 29,707 by 2008, a 9 percent rise, according federal figures.

The administration is trying to invest in greater oversight of what the government buys, Orszag said. Specifically he said the administration wants to crack down on no-bid contracts, buy goods and services in bulk, and increase the acquisition workforce's size so the government can better oversee its contracts.

As the administration looks to increase the acquisition workforce, officials said in the budget proposal documents that the world has changed to a knowledge-based economy.

“Half a century ago, most white collar federal employees performed clerical tasks, such as posting Census figures in ledgers and retrieving taxpayer records from file rooms,” the proposal states.

The administration proposed spending $24.9 million for training the acquisition workforce. The money would support interagency initiatives and projects that improve the ability of civilian agencies to assess the size and skills of their procurement employees. It would also provide funds for agencies to find the best mix between public employees and private sector contracts carrying out agency work, the budget proposal states.

Over the past year, the Obama administration has emphasized its concerns that agencies have allowed contractors to do too much in conducting their operations.

“The activities supported through this fund are intended to foster and promote the development of the acquisition workforce,” the budget document states.

In addition, the agencies have the Acquisition Workforce Training Fund. The mandatory appropriation of funds is for civilian agencies to train their employees. It’s financed by 5 percent of the fees collected from civilian agencies' procurements from governm-entwide information technology acquisition contracts, the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedules program, and other multi-agency contracts.

Meanwhile, officials are working with the Office of Personnel Management to simplify and streamline the hiring process. They also want easier checkpoints so the people applying for federal jobs can check online to see what’s happening, Orszag said.

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