Somebody Hates My Son?

Chris Dekom is about to turn 27; he holds a double-major B.A. from Duke University (econ and poly sci), has passed all three levels of the Chartered Financial Analyst certification program (tough course of study with one test per year for three years; 10-15% pass all three the first time; he did) and attends night and weekend classes at Johns Hopkins towards a master of science in energy policy & climate. He is also a federal bureaucrat working as an Investment Officer at the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C., watching taxpayer dollars like a hawk while maximizing the use of federal stimulus loans to find new and more efficient energy technologies, trying to make sure he brings the best skills he can to his job. He has a modest apartment, gave up his car because it cost too much to maintain, and lives a pretty frugal lifestyle. But he is a federal bureaucrat, and the perception of that vast category of workers (1.9 million) in this recession-wracked economy is pretty negative these days.

Yeah, I’ve blogged how our governmental pension structure is unsustainable at virtually all levels of state and federal government. And while undoubtedly some government folks might be overpaid compared to what they might have earned in the private sector, my son also tells me of the cadres of fellow workers, educated at the nation’s best schools often with solid experience at some of our top investment banking and consulting firms, who most definitely aren’t in it for the pay or the benefits; they actually want to make our nation stronger, more competitive and economically sound. Civil servants who care? As a child of Washington (I was born there, and both my father and mother worked for the feds as did my step-father), I’ve heard it all. Yet my memory only provides with visions of people who really cared, who were dedicated to the United States of America.

The Washington Post (reported October 18^th) recently conducted a poll (with others noted below) to determine exactly what Americans feel about their bureaucratic brethren in federal service, especially as angry voters, many unemployed or underemployed, approach the mid-term elections: “In the new Post survey, 52 percent of Americans think that federal civil servants are paid too much, a view held by nearly two in three Republicans and about seven in 10 conservatives. Far fewer Democrats, independents, liberals and moderates hold this opinion… Half also say the men and women who keep the government running do not work as hard as employees at private companies…

“Three-quarters of those surveyed say they think federal workers are paid more and get better benefits than their counterparts outside government, an increase of seven percentage points from a Post-ABC poll conducted in 1982, when the country also struggled in a recession… The survey shows public views of federal workers deeply split along party lines, with Republicans the most apt to see a disconnect between government pay and that in the private sector. Republicans' more negative views in the poll reflect the party's souring view of government in general. Fully 80 percent of Republicans say federal priorities are misplaced, in a recent study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University on Americans' views of the role of government… Nearly six in 10 Republicans say federal civil servants do not work as hard and nearly half say they are of lower quality than workers at private companies, both double-digit increases over 2001.”

Can we... and should we… cut and furlough federal workers? I suspect we must; in times of economic impairment, accountability and frugality are simply a part of modern life, and the federal government is no different from the rest of the country, whose hard-earned tax dollars are even more precious in this horrific economy. But in terms of attitude and generalities, it’s probably a safe bet to believe that the vast majority of federal employees care about their jobs, the people they serve and are hardly the over-compensated buffoons the polls suggest they might be; most live pretty modest lives.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am reminded of the story about the “baby and the bathwater…”