Edwards Proposes “Anti-Brownie” Law for Federal Employees

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has offered an interesting idea. He has dared to suggest that people with a certain degree of professional competence should be given high level government work instead of rewarding political hacks for their past and future support. “It’s an absolute travesty to have people who are essentially political hacks in a very responsible position,” he told an audience at the University of New Orleans earlier this week. Amen.

Unlike a European prime minister, a new American president has literally thousands of jobs to hand out. Not only is there a Cabinet to fill, and embassies to staff, the new president has jobs like US Attorney, head of FEMA and Director of the National Park Service to fill. Most do not require Senate confirmation. No wonder a bozo like Michael “Heckuva Job, Brownie” Brown, with no experience of disaster relief or planning but with some knowledge of Arabian horses, wound up as leader of the agency that should have rescued the people of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

Mr. Edwards didn’t spell out in any detail what qualifications would be necessary for any particular job, but the discussion is worth having. As a matter of principle, one ought to acknowledge that the president should have the Cabinet he wants, and the next layer of government (the deputy secretaries) as well. Ambassadorships, though, shouldn’t just go to a golfing buddy who raised $5 million for the campaign. Fluency in the language of the nation, work experience there, or academic study about the country to which one is posted should be a bare minimum.

Jobs at the Food and Drug Administration should go to biologists, vacancies at the Federal Communications Commission to engineers, and the federal highway operations should be supervised by someone who has studied transportation issues. That America doesn’t require that is astonishing. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) who is running for president said Katrina proved, “government is inept.” It certainly proved that this particular bunch is full of ineptitude. Given the personnel policies of the Bush administration, though, that comes as no surprise.

Long ago, America had the spoils system, whereby the party that won the election staffed the government. That was changed with the civil service reforms, but the growth of government has put the country right back where it used to be. Some may decry the diminution of presidential power, but in the name of professionalizing American government, that wouldn’t be bad. After all, the military is run by career officers, why not have pros run the rest of the government? Government isn't alwasy the problem; amateurism is.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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