When I first started learning Public Administration, I thought it would be based on politics and more closely tied to the political process. The way my first class was taught and the main definition of Public Administration (adequate delivery of services through the public good, with competing goals of social equity and efficiency) is a concept that makes perfect sense to those who understand the field.
Woodrow Wilson’s writings on Public Administration laid out a great reason why public administration and a strong public sector must exist. A strong civil service that ensures the most qualified and expert members are hired to address very specific and complicated issues or “wicked problems”, alongside a need to evolve as a society, to follow other countries' footsteps in reaping the benefits of a strong public sector. He wrote with passion about how there are good people who can achieve productive goals for the government, help the government maintain legitimacy, and follow/improve public input/output. Government does not have all the answers, but it must be an advocate for the public-- to have humanity as its guiding principle-- compared to only focusing on the maximization of profit.
The need for expertise in the government, following structure and order in accordance with a better ethical set of standards than the private sector, is the heart of government. The thought of the public's money--taxpayer's money--as sacred, and the use of its resources must be efficient and effective. This is why qualified, experienced experts in their fields must be placed to work in government. Government cannot become an ideological playground for whatever ideology is hot for Americans, it must be a steward of public resources and effective in its mission, to spend taxpayer dollars efficiently with Equality and Justice for all.
President Trump’s executive order placing a Hiring Freeze on Federal Agencies harms
the weakest of us. Veterans hospitals become understaffed unable to perform the care needed for our veterans. The Civil Rights unit is underfunded in the Department of Justice, allowing injustice to go unnoticed and unabridged. The best Environmental Scientists end up working for the chemical companies that enhance pollution and contamination instead of stopping it. No one wants this world to happen theoretically, but it’s going to happen with this executive order. America is throwing aside the Enlightenment principles that made it great.
America must look itself in the mirror, and wonder why these agencies, this form of government, is under attack by the richest people in America. The future of Expertise is under attack by President Trump, and old lessons learned in the 1910s and '20s about the Spoils system and blatant government corruption by private industry may have to be learned again. This time though, America sends the wrong message to the world.
An eye for an eye, instead of “Out of many, one".
Photo Credit:
[1]-IStock
[2]-Shutterstock
[3]- Getty Images
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