CNN — The last 140 years have been littered with promises by presidents to fix the federal bureaucracy. Back in the late 1880s, when unqualified political appointees were wasting taxpayer dollars, there was a move to professionalize government workers in a merit-based bureaucracy. The effort gained momentum after then-President James Garfield was shot and killed by a disaffected former supporter with mental illness who was angry at not getting a job in Garfield’s administration. The US has a bureaucracy for a reason The political “spoils” system, which the bureaucracy replaced, was demonized for its cronyism, inefficiency and graft. Now, ironically,...