Paul Krugman: The Green-Zoning of America

Paul Krugman describes the administration's creation of a "supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system":

The Green-Zoning of America, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: One of the best of the many recent books about the Iraq debacle is Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” The book tells a tale of hopes squandered in the name of politicization and privatization: key jobs in Baghdad’s Green Zone were assigned on the basis of loyalty rather than know-how, while key functions were outsourced to private contractors.

Two recent reports in The New York Times serve as a reminder that the Bush administration has brought the same corruption of governance to the home front. Call it the Green-Zoning of America.

In the first article, The Times reported that a new executive order requires that each agency contain a “regulatory policy office run by a political appointee,” a change that “strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts.” Yesterday, The Times turned to the rapid growth of federal contracting, fed “by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does.”

These are two different pieces of the same story: under the guise of promoting a conservative agenda, the Bush administration has created a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system.

The blueprint for Bush-era governance was laid out in a January 2001 manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel.” The manifesto’s message, in brief, was that the professional civil service should be regarded as the enemy of the new administration’s conservative agenda. ...

How should the civil service be defeated? First and foremost, Heritage demanded that politics take precedence...: the new administration “must make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second.”

Second, Heritage called for a big increase in outsourcing... This would supposedly reduce costs, but it would also have the desirable effect of reducing the total number of civil servants.

The Bush administration energetically put these recommendations into effect. ... The ostensible reason for politicizing and privatizing was to promote the conservative ideal of smaller, more efficient government. But the small-government rhetoric was never sincere: from Day 1, the administration set out to create a vast new patronage machine.

Those political appointees chosen for their loyalty, not their expertise, aren’t very good at doing their proper jobs — as all the world learned after Hurricane Katrina struck. But they have been very good at rewarding campaign contributors...

And the executive order described by The Times will make it even easier for political appointees to ... tailor... government regulations to suit the interests of companies that support the G.O.P. — or to give lucrative contracts to people with the right connections.

Meanwhile, never mind the idea that outsourcing of government functions should be used to promote competition and save money. The Times reports that “fewer than half of all ... new contracts and payments against existing contracts — are now subject to full and open competition,” down from 79 percent in 2001. And many contractors are paid far more than it would cost to do the job with government employees...

What’s truly amazing is how far back we’ve slid in such a short time. The modern civil service system dates back more than a century; in just six years the Bush administration has managed to undo many of that system’s achievements. And the administration still has two years to go.

Update: In comments, Paul Krugman adds:

I see someone complaining that I didn't write about this sooner. But I actually told basically the whole story 4 years ago: http://pkarchive.org/column/111902.html

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Previous (2/2) column: Paul Krugman: Missing Molly Ivins
Next (2/9) column: Paul Krugman: Edwards Gets It Right

Comments

[Movie Guy]

I share the concerns that have been identified in numerous news articles regarding the role of outsourcing and contracting oversight in the U.S. Government. Moreover, I have such concerns at state, county, and municipal levels. I do support the principal concerns identified by Paul Krugman regarding outsourcing and contracting in the federal government. I will go a step further and say that, aside from the obvious political abuses by the Bush Administration in outsourcing job functions, the most alarming abuses and illegal activities involve the vast increase in the number, dollar value, and percentages of sole source federal contracts as compared to competitive bid contracts. As a former federal contracting officer, I find the current application of sole source contracting to be alarming. I have never seen it this bad. It is shocking.

Paul did, though, fail to mention that the Bush Administration is not the first administration to ramp up the levels of outsourcing and contracting in the U.S. Government. That initiative was undertaken with vigor by at least one previous administration. While the NYTimes places the burden for that action on the Clinton Administration, I can advise that the practice was well underway by 1977 as DoD contracting of base operations was already gaining steam. That was only the beginning of the current "shedding" of workers and functions that we are now observing.

In Washington, Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever
February 4, 2007, NYTimes:

"Wariness of government contracting dates at least to 1941, when Harry S. Truman, then a senator, declared, “I have never yet found a contractor who, if not watched, would not leave the government holding the bag.”
"But the recent contracting boom had its origins in the “reinventing government” effort of the Clinton administration, which slashed the federal work force to the lowest level since 1960 and streamlined outsourcing. Limits on what is “inherently governmental” and therefore off-limits to contractors have grown fuzzy, as the General Services Administration’s use of CACI International personnel shows."

"Even the most outspoken critics acknowledge that the government cannot operate without contractors, which provide the surge capacity to handle crises without expanding the permanent bureaucracy. Contractors provide specialized skills the government does not have. And it is no secret that some government executives favor contractors because they find the federal bureaucracy slow, inflexible or incompetent.

[Movie Guy]

Worthwhile reading:

Acquisition Advisory Panel
Executive Office of the President of the Unites States

Final Panel Working DRAFT
REPORT OF THE ACQUISITION ADVISORY PANEL
TO THE OFFICE OF FEDERAL PROCUREMENT POLICY
AND THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
December 2006

Contracting Investigations and Analysis
Project for Government Oversight
* EVERYTHING reported is at this web site. Outstanding effort.

Better oversight of contractors
January 16, 2007, Boston Globe

Questions arise over GSA chief and contracting irregularities
January 19, 2007, GOVEXEC.COM

[Movie Guy]

GSA Chief Scrutinized For Deal With Friend
January 19, 2007, Washington Post

Industry group urges flexibility in emergency contracting
February 2, 2007, GOVEXEC.COM

The Time Is Now: Contracting in Emergencies
January 2007, Contract Services Association

In Washington, Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever
February 4, 2007, NYTimes

Graphic: Outsourcing the Government (four graphs)
February 4, 2007, NYTimes
* Article cited by Paul Krugman. Well worth the read.

[Movie Guy]

While I fully agree with the general concerns regarding federal and state contracting and outsourcing of functions and jobs, I caution that the issue of regulatory planning and review in the Federal Government has continued to require the approval of department and agency heads for at least the past thirteen years. While the Bush Administration has fine-tuned the art of insuring political appointee oversight and control of the roles of all Regulatory Policy Officers, it is not clear that such positions weren't being filled or provided near identical oversight previously under the Bush Administration and Clinton Administration. All of this is governed by Executive Order 12866 and its two amendments since being implemented by the Clinton Administration in 1993.

Here is Executive Order 12866 and amended changes since September 30, 1993:

Executive Order 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review, signed 30 September 1993

Executive Order 13258-Amending Executive Order 12866 on Regulatory Planning and Review, signed February 26, 2002

* E.O. 13258 eliminates the role of the Vice President in the sections annotated.

Executive Order 13422: Further Amendment to Executive Order 12866 on Regulatory Planning and Review, signed 18 January 2007, and here

Revised Executive Order 12866, effective 18 January 2007:

Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993, as amended by E.O. 13258 of February 26, 2002 and E.O. 13422 of January 18, 2007, REGULATORY PLANNING AND REVIEW

Key provision change under discussion:

Section 6(a)(2):

Original provision, 1993 Exective Order 12866, September 30, 1993:

"(2) Within 60 days of the date of this Executive order, each agency head shall designate a Regulatory Policy Officer who shall report to the agency head. The Regulatory Policy Officer shall be involved at each stage of the regulatory process to foster the development of effective, innovative, and least burdensome regulations and to further the principles set forth in this Executive order."

Revised provision per Executive Order 13422 amendment of Executive Order 12866, January 18, 2007:

by amending the first sentence of section 6(a)(2) to read as follows: "Within 60 days of the date of this Executive order, each agency head shall designate one of the agency's Presidential Appointees to be its Regulatory Policy Officer, advise OMB of such designation, and annually update OMB on the status of this designation."

----

Krugman is still promoting the shocking notion that this is something radically different from what the Bush Administration was already doing under previous executive order direction (the executive order drafted and implemented by the Clinton Administration). It is clear from the language in the previous version of the provision concerned that the Bush Administration could have assigned the duties of any department or agency lead Regulatory Policy Officer to a political appointee or put such individual under the direct supervision of an assistant secretary or undersecretary or deputy director, all of whom are generally political appointees.

Moreover, the executive order control of the review process as identified by the Clinton Administration and endorsed since 1993 going forward is still maintained at the department or agency head level. In order words, the department secretary or agency head is still the appoving authority for subordinate decisions or recommendations put forth by the lead department or agency regulatory policy officers. Nothing has changed in that regard. So, political appointees have remained in control of the process as has been the case for at least thirteen years. If anything, the Bush Administration has simply stuck it in our face.

[alphie]

Back in the days of Ronnie, when I was a card carrying Republican, we used to worry that if enough people received government welfare checks, we'd never take back Congress.

Now the problem seems to be that if enough people receive corporate welfare checks, the Democrats will never take back the White House.

2008 is shaping up to be a rather important presidential election.

[anne]

Of course, this Republican Administration, this Administration of George Bush is different, astonishingly and brazingly different than any Administration since that of Andrew Jackson and beyond even that.

We have a Presidency that is insanely and self-defeatingly ideological and viciously partisan. There is no respect for truth only respect for radical conservative meanness. Evolution does not exist, the big bang did not happen, global warming is global cooling, war is peace.... This is where Republicanism has taken us.

[ilsm]

Movie Guy is referring, in part, to the OMB circular A-76 which set processes for privatizing governmental functions.

The idea was: if I could find a contractor to do roads and ground on post, I could have them do that service and make soldiers available for other duites like be infantrymen.

The contractors generally had to be 10% cheaper than the government organization and the source would have a competition between the government and the contractors proposal. They could both offer efficiencies.

A-76 was signed in the Eisenhower Administration.

My observation: The costs always go up and the prices and service are worse in a few years.

Prior to Ike, John Vessey and crew decided with the National Security Act of 1947 to privatize the arsenals and create the military industrial complex. For profit arsenals.

These have given huge cost increases, immodestly capital intensive warfare which is not useful and 20 years of Star Wars, among other science projects with no outcome, the warfare welfare state.

Bush is just pushing a trend started in the 40's to pillage the taxpayer, who more and more is the lower income levels.

[ilsm]

Let's take the example of the fictitious government sector (a rapidly growing market!!) services firm: Captains and Colonels (retired of course) Inc.

They do services for their old offices where they used to work or know people who work there.

They also hire retiring guys from their old offices, the ones who sent them contracts ever larger and more costly all the time.

They do services, non personal, under Part FAR 37.2. They do only commercial activities, because as Krugman notes only a political can do rule making and policy.

They actually do everything short of signing the rule or other representation of the 'governmetal function'.

They perform personal servcies, they also perform voluntary services which are prohibited by law and whose violation carries a fine and imprisonment. Similar to spending money that was appropriated for something else. Fraud.

What happens is you end up with the Captains and Colonels (retired of course) Inc. employees doing the work with three times the needed people, for the civil servant, still there, who cannot be trusted to carry the administrations' water, for the political appointee who has no clue.

Good work if you can get it, three times the cost and plenty of good jobs.

I think that is why they created the civil servce in the 1880's.

Now, the patronage people have the National Security Personnel System that is nuetering the profressional civil service in DoD.

It is Teapot Dome all over again.

And the budget sent to congress today will provide three quarters of a trillion bucks for them to spend on patronage.

[Real Person from the Real World]

I commented before, and I say it again, we are not getting smaller, cheaper gov't, we are getting more contractors to whom we pay even more than the original civil service people!

Of course, some jobs can and should be outsourced. You may not want to butcher your own meat, but let's point something out here. Supposedly, original civil servants were hired at least technically, on some expertise on a resume or by exam? Furthermore, supposedly he is paid a close to market pay rate.... so how is some large, generalized consulting company supposedly supperior? If there people were paid theorhetically paid LESS than the civil servant that used to do the job, and thus save taxpayer money, then HOW to they make a profit? Contracting is a big SHAM. I see that in IT, and I see that hear as well. All these guys that leave gov't service go out to establish there own contracting companies, because that is where they make the REAL money, at our expense.

[bakho]

Anyone with contacts in the Federal government knew that this was going on 6 months into the administration. The corruption in the Bush administration is one of the most under-reported stories. All the 'starve the beast' and other excuses to understand Bush policy were smokescreens. From day one, corrupt patronage politics has been the best predictor of Bush policy.

Bush has been able to get away with it because Congress has not done its oversight job. The media has chosen not to write about it. The Bush political machine knows how to play hardball. Inside sources and authors of tell-all narratives find themselves blacklisted. My friends in DC agencies complain about the corruption in personal conversation but are afraid to rock the boat. Under Clinton, people like LInda Tripp would be moved to another agency. Under Bush, they are fired and blacklisted from ever being hired by any Republican. The initimidation is fierce. If we elect a Democrat in 2008, there will be a huge number of stories about corruption pouring out of the agencies.

Clinton could never have done what Bush has done. Even minor Clinton patronage changes (WH travel office) were barraged with huge warning shots from Congress and the media.

Krugman is just now writing about it?

[Bupa]

Does the Federal Gov't have an external auditor? Do Executive Branch agencies have internal auditing departments? Does Congress read these audits? Are the audits public?

[bakho]

Movie guy defends Bush with talking points. "Everybody does it." No, everybody does not do it. It is still theft of taxpayer property.

Many people shoplift; very few rob banks.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Outsourcing.... In IT you got LAYERS. Nothing is as it seems, and there are winners and losers. Usually the guy that does the actual work loses, while the Vendor of the consulting services makes out BIG TIME. Companies that use IT consulting services try hard to control costs, but they are part of the problem inflating costs! Same with the gov't!. To make a profit, the middle layers play all sorts of games, and the purchaser of the services is the one to get screwed. In IT we have no entry level IT jobs anymore. We hire consultants vetted thru companies in their home countries, specifically to prep them for the US market. Until the US companies get burned, they won't quit the practice, meanwhile incomes in the US are becoming polarized.

[ilsm]

Bupa,

See http://www.gao.gov

It is run by congress so: no, not an outside audit, usually looks at what the congress will ask them to look into, and that is in synch with the corruption.

Congress pads the contractors in return for the jobs and donations.

[ilsm]

Bakho,

The contractors' work does not have to pass OPM standards so anything you want done and want a friend to do you can hire the friend through the contract.

And each year the prices go up and the phoney deliveries are still useless.

[RW]

Looks like the Republicans have reinvented colonialism: The exploitation of the mother country is the game; exploitation of third-world countries is secondary, more about allocating graft, hardening troops and expending ordinance than expropriating resources.

[bakho]

Oversight panel ready to dig into U.S. waste, fraud

By JULIA MALONE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/05/07
Washington — After years of stockpiling findings and allegations, Rep. Henry Waxman will unleash four days of hearings this week aimed at exposing an array of "waste, fraud and abuse" in government.

The new Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — who already has a reputation as the most feared congressional inquisitor — is set to begin Tuesday by digging into the Bush administration's program to rebuild war-torn Iraq.

Scheduled first is former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, who oversaw the early reconstruction effort.

Waxman's outline for the hearing says Bremer will be asked about allegations that the reconstruction agency he ran "filled positions with unqualified staff who were politically connected."

The oversight panel also is set to focus on private contractors hired to provide supplies for the U.S. military effort in Iraq, especially subcontractors working for Halliburton, the corporate giant once led by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Another target later in the week is the Department of Homeland Security and its multibillion-dollar contracts to modernize the aging Coast Guard fleet and to install a Secure Border Initiative network, or SBInet, to protect the nation's borders with a system of technology, cameras and sensors.

By Friday, the last of the opening barrage of Waxman hearings is scheduled to examine whether the pharmaceutical industry is bilking federal health programs by overcharging for prescription drugs.

Among those set to testify Friday is Patrick O'Connell, the Texas assistant attorney general who mobilized a team of lawyers to sue drug manufacturers for overcharging the Medicaid program.

The packed week of hearings is the product of the California congressman's pent-up desire to perform oversight, which had been restrained by a dozen years of Republican control of the House.

"There cannot be enough accountability in the federal government," Clay Johnson, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told The Associated Press last week. He added that there is "very little real accountability" in federal operations.

Many government auditors regularly churn out critical reports on federal programs and contractors. But those reports have little effect "unless the Congress takes them on and does something with it," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group. She said that, for the most part, Congress has been ignoring government auditors, including inspectors general and the Defense Department's own contract agency.

She said she was hopeful that the new House would be stronger in oversight — largely because of the doggedness of Waxman.

[kthomas]

General,..er,his Eminence....er, Prof. Krugman will have Ayn Rand and her damnable philosophies in complete ruin by the end of this week, I estimate.

[Carolyn Kay]

We must always remember that businesses have to make a profit. Yet the only reason to choose private contractors to do work that the government is committed to do, is that it cost less if done by a business. To manage that, especially to do it and still make a profit, the contractor has to skimp on the work, skimp on the employees' pay, or just do whatever the hell they want to do and way overcharge for it, knowing that their political buddies will cover their illegal activities.

How obvious does all this have to be before it seeps into the public consciousness?

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[save_the_rustbelt]

Nothing will kill the bureaucracy.

It may ebb and flow, but it cannot be killed.

This too shall pass.

[anne]

Yes; remind me to ridicule a teacher or a librarian or a fire fighter, while I complain about bureaucracy ebbing and flowing.

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Do not lose sight of the fact that Canada spends about 9% of GDP on health care, while the US spends over 15%.

Canadians live longer than Americans.

Americans "outsource" health insurance to private companies. In Canada health care is provided by doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and so on. The insurance function, i.e. paying for the whole thing, is done by the taxpayer through the government.

Health care needs to be paid for, but no "insurance" function exists. Everybody has a body, and every body needs to be cared for. There's no insurance company in front of the medical bay on an aircraft carrier. Why should there be on Spaceship Earth?

Simple proposition.

Note that Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the two people who are clearest in stating Republican health care reform proposals, want more of the same. Both of them propose to use the police power of the state to make individual payments to profit-making insurance companies compulsory.

[Paul Krugman]

I see someone complaining that I didn't write about this sooner. But I actually told basically the whole story 4 years ago:
http://pkarchive.org/column/111902.html

[calmo]

Here's hoping Henry Waxman gets the press coverage he needs to remind people that corruption, (not Iraq which was/is an ongoing issue which did not previously precipitate those disapproval ratings) is the problem...starting with the media that ensures we see it their way: fair and balanced.

[anne]

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/111902.html

November 19, 2002

Victors and Spoils
By Paul Krugman - New York Times

Rule No. 1: Always have a cover story. The ostensible purpose of the Bush administration's plan to open up 850,000 federal jobs to private competition is to promote efficiency. Competitive vigor, we're told, will end bureaucratic sloth; costs will go down, and everyone — except for a handful of overpaid union members — will be better off.

And who knows? Here and there the reform may actually save a few dollars. But I doubt that there's a single politician or journalist in Washington who believes that privatizing much of the federal government — a step that the administration says it can take without any new legislation — is really motivated by a desire to reduce costs.

After all, there's a lot of experience with privatization by governments at all levels — state, federal, and local; that record doesn't support extravagant claims about improved efficiency. Sometimes there are significant cost reductions, but all too often the promised savings turn out to be a mirage. In particular, it's common for private contractors to bid low to get the business, then push their prices up once the government work force has been disbanded. Projections of a 20 or 30 percent cost saving across the board are silly — and one suspects that the officials making those projections know that.

So what's this about?

First, it's about providing political cover. In the face of budget deficits as far as the eye can see, the administration — determined to expand, not reconsider the program of tax cuts it initially justified with projections of huge surpluses — must make a show of cutting spending. Yet what can it cut? The great bulk of public spending is either for essential services like defense and the justice system, or for middle-class entitlements like Social Security and Medicare that the administration doesn't dare attack openly.

Privatizing federal jobs is a perfect answer to this dilemma. It's not a real answer — the pay of those threatened employees is only about 2 percent of the federal budget, so efficiency gains from privatization, even if they happen, will make almost no dent in overall spending. For a few years, however, talk of privatization will give the impression that the administration is doing something about the deficit.

But distracting the public from the reality of deficits is, we can be sure, just an incidental payoff. So, too, is the fact that privatization is a way to break one of the last remaining strongholds of union power. Karl Rove is after much bigger game.

A few months ago Mr. Rove compared his boss to Andrew Jackson. As some of us noted at the time, one of Jackson's key legacies was the "spoils system," under which federal jobs were reserved for political supporters. The federal civil service, with its careful protection of workers from political pressure, was created specifically to bring the spoils system to an end; but now the administration has found a way around those constraints....

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

Just a bit of info on my small piece of knowledge of government contracting: We re-builtd a circa 1945 facility at NASA at around 150 million, small potatoes, during the mid 90's. The original bid process was to contract out the entire design build job. The first round of bidding came in at way over budget. So we separated the design job from the build job and brought inhouse quite a bit of the design. We had the engineering expertese to do a lot of the design work but of course did not have enough construction assets or expertese. Our design work costs did not show up in the reported costs so the job could come in under budget.
From my seat at the table there was good competition between the bidders on both jobs. The winner of the outhouse design work was an American company who sub-contracted out the most of the design to a Canadian company. We became the general contractor.
The construction bidding was on separate work units that could be packaged rationally. The competiton for both the design and construction work was opened up world wide. We got some of our best work from foreign companies. Work was done by Japanese, Swiss, Swedish and Finnish companies. Chicago Bridge and Iron did a great job on the heavy duty metal bashing and welding however some of the American companies were a pain to work with.
This is ancient history now and the facility that I spent 10 years of my life on is now in moth balls.
The point is that government-industry cooperation can do good work and do it fairly effiecently but on the government side there has to be a high level of experience and knowledge plus management support at the highest levels of the agency backing up the decisions made at the project level. Add another layer of "political" oversight will be the same as adding another chef to the kitchen who's job is to piss in the soup.

[donna]

It's way worse than robbing banks. This is owning the bank, the printing presses, and everything else, printing cash, loaning it to your buddies, and then defaulting on all your creditors. That's Bush's America.

[elvis]

I love Bush. Who else could leave the smell of sulphur wherever he goes?

Oh, that would be me (coming from the other end!)--and I tend to 'cut and run'!

I might consider running for president under the Republican flag. No serious Republican should consider it.

[calmo]

Elvis plagiarizing Chavez I see. Naughty boy. Stinky boy. bad, BAD boy.
Remember what your ma said:
Don't play with matches when you're coming and going like that. [On this sensitive topic, let me recommend 'Volver' which aside from being the most intelligent movie I've seen in ages, has this....scene that will get hooting and tooting even if your tastes run to...other kinds of movies.]

[gordon]

On the more general corruption front, Economists Voice has a nice little piece by Baker and Nordin on Dirty Money worldwide. Of course, one piece of corruption can blend seamlessly into another, given time. It's a good read, tho' I wonder a bit about the methodology.

[Movie Guy]

bakho - "Movie guy defends Bush with talking points. "Everybody does it." No, everybody does not do it. It is still theft of taxpayer property. Many people shoplift; very few rob banks."

That's a rather dishonest post, bahko.

Perhaps you need to go back and read my remarks about the Bush Administration. I thought I hammered them rather effectively with my remarks and links.

Yes, I pointed out that the problem goes back beyond this Administration and I used Paul Krugman's reference - The New York Times. But don't pretend like a blind Borg Left that I didn't take offense with the Bush Administration's practices on outsourcing and contracting. I am sure that there would be plenty of Borg Right readers that are not thrilled with my remarks about the Bush Administration.

The Borg Left and Borg Right have one thing in common, they still think like Borg. Nothing satisfies them except lockstep mentality. That's not me, bahko. Not now, not ever.

[anne]

Of course, the problem is precisely with this Administration, precisely and exactly and in a way we have not experienced for 150 years, such is the problem. Such has been the problem with having George Bush as President with a Republican Congress, of course. This is the patronage Administration, such as has not been known for 150 years.

says...

The BushCo goal is NOT to make government smaller and cheaper - but to make government APPEAR smaller and to hide the true costs of doing the government's business.

Republicans always, always, always prefer hidden taxes to overtly stated taxes because the hidden taxes are easier to shove off onto the backs of the poor, leaving the rich with all the benefit and NONE of the appropriate civil burden.

[--Andrew]

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing. It seems the original founding of the Federal Civil Service was done as part of a reform movement, embodied in the Pendelton Act, after the assassination of President Garfield by a disappointed office holder. Former commisioners included Theodore Roosevelt. What I find interesting about it was that (according to Wikipedia) the act was designed to use political patronage to its advantage. It initially only covered a few Federal jobs, but it included a rachet clause that allowed Presidents to convert political appointee jobs to Civil Service, insulating these loyal supporters from the following Administration and locking them in to their posts. This gave Presidents and Administrations motivation to grow the civil service and see it as a benefit to them. Enlightened human self-interest harnessed to futher the percieved public good. Very clever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform_Act