What if there was a person who was running for president who said that on their first day they were going to fire 50,000 government employees? Is that a good idea?
Lewis, Michael. Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service (p. 208). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
We actually had a spoil system in the 19th century. We had a president that was assassinated by a disgruntled job seeker, President Garfield. And that assassination led to the reform of our government and a movement away from the spoils system to a merit-based professional civil service. And unfortunately, well, for 130 some odd years, that model of our government that we seek out those with merit, experts that can actually do the business of government on behalf of the public in a better way, that’s now been challenged for the first time. And we have former president Trump—I will say the name—who has proposed, and frankly, tried in his first term to implement a process of changing that civil service, upending it and converting it into a political process. So we already have 4,000 political appointees in every administration. That’s many, many, many multiples more than any other democracy in the world. And this would create tens of thousands, if not more, political appointees rather than, again, the selection of people on the basis of their merit and their ability to best serve the public.”
Lewis, Michael. Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service (p. 210). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Do we as Americans get better governmental services from a merit based civil service system or a spoil system made up of political appointees?
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