Late yesterday morning, Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner caught wind of a new Obama Administration regulation designed to “that is clearly designed to weed out any Bush administration political appointees who ‘careered-into’ the civil service.” Tapscott also sees the regulation as one which “effectively establishes a partisan political factor in hiring for career civil service positions in the federal bureaucracy.” Eric Erickson calls it a “purge” (RedState). The Administration, as far as I’m aware, has yet to deny this or spin it down.
Like Eric and Mark, I see an Administration attempting to remove political opponents from the executive branch, and to keep them out. Unlike them, I am not fazed by this. In fact, I applaud it.
Over the last century and two scores, the most politically dangerous event in the United States has been the rise of the “civil service” bureaucracy. It has become the greatest impediment to attempts to reduce excess government.
It has, however, become more than that: at nearly every level of government, the permanent bureaucracy has acquired its own agenda (survival and expansion) and largely imposed it on elected officials – depriving them of the ability to carry out mandates sought from the voters, severely limiting the voters’ ability to hold said officials accountable, and generally making politics far less transparent and honorable. Candidates can make promises knowing full well they won’t be able to fulfill them and with a ready-made villain to blame (said villain is usually more than willing to take the role). Voters have grown more and more cynical as a result.
The only redeeming quality of the civil service is its supposed check against the corrupt nature of allowing the elected executive the full authority to appoint whomever (s)he wishes (largely derided as the “patronage” system). That this president hails from the one place where “patronage” has acquired its dishonor (Chicago) is unfortunate, but those of us born and raised in new Jersey can attest that “civil service” is no panacea for corruption.
Indeed, the anti-corruption theme was the basis for the civil service’s creation in the 1870s – and it was based on the myth that post-Civil War governments were unusually corrupt (this could only be believed by a population that lost nearly all of its witnesses to the 1820s and 1830s due to old age and war – which is what the United States largely was in the post-Civil War era). In fact, the “patronage” system was itself an attempt to clear out longtime government officials who had used the time to feather their nests (both Jefferson and Jackson were incensed at holdovers from the Administrations they defeated; Jefferson about bureaucrats thwarting his agenda, Jackson about Adamsites that were thoroughly corrupt).
In the meantime, most (if not all) of government functions create divisions within the electorate about how said functions are delivered (welfare reform, education reform, privatization, etc.) or whether they should even be delivered at all. Even at the local level (and I can attest to this personally), things as seemingly non-controversial as the Fire Department can become a divisive political issue (here in Spotsylvania, a storm is brewing over where the next Fire and Rescue station should go; it nearly became a partisan issue and it is almost certain to remain a regional one).
In the midst of all of this, permanent bureaucracies – which almost never have the same agenda as those elected to run them – continue to metastasize. I have yet to see a defense of this that would even rise to the level of feeble, let alone robust.
Therefore, even though this Administration was not elected with my vote, I hope it succeeds in imposing its will on the federal bureaucracy. At the very least, it will ensure (1) that an Administration that is elected with my vote will have the same power, and (2) that voters see the new reality and give their vote the sober importance that it would now deserve.