For many federal workers, job just a paycheckby Paul C. Light
Americans who read the headlines coming out of Washington this past year must be wondering whether the federal government can pound sand into a hole, let alone restore homeland security or win the war on terrorism.
- The FBI fails to investigate warnings of terrorist flight training.
- Immigration officials send visa notices to long-dead hijackers.
- The IRS help line gives the wrong answer to one out of four tax-law questions.
- The Social Security Administration can't answer almost a third of its phone calls.
- The US government gave $20 billion last year to the wrong people and has no plan to get it all back.
... In a Brookings Institution Center for Public Service poll that we are releasing Thursday [June 27th], two-thirds of the federal employees interviewed this spring said they took their job for its security, pay and benefits &emdash; not the chance to help people, make a difference or accomplish something worthwhile. Two out of five said they come into work solely for the paycheck, while fewer than one in 20 said they show up to help the public. (Postal, military and employees of quasi-government agencies weren't polled.)
... how many federal employees see their work. More than half say their organizations do not do a good job of disciplining poor performers, and almost as many say that there are too many layers of management in their agencies.
The effect of layering is clear. As FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley told a Senate committee, "Like the (plant in the) Little Shop of Horrors movie, the bureaucracy just keeps saying, 'Feed me, feed me.' " The problem in preventing terrorist attacks is not a lack of information, for example. Rather, it is getting past the childhood game of telephone that the bureaucracy plays as intelligence rises through layer upon layer of interpreters ...
Paul C. Light is vice president and director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution.
This is true. My neighbor, who works for the post office, has loads of emdash in his garage.