A view from outside the Beltway

Lots of us inside the Beltway — lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, think tankers and journalists — think you guys out there don’t get it. Don’t see the big picture.

But lots of people (the vast majority of Americans, right, left, Democrat or Republican) know for a fact that we truly don’t get it.

Which is the subject of today’s guest column, which pretty much says it all:

“It is not so much that us outsiders hate you guys inside, as it is we don’t think you have the same life experiences. When was the last time an organization in D.C. laid off 5,000 or 10,000 workers? It is bad enough that you guys do not create anything tangible, such as cars, cigarettes, panties, socks, etc. What you produce are the instructions that others have to follow. As time goes by, and more employees find more ways to sneak through the cracks, it becomes necessary to write more instructions about the same thing. Thus you are seen as nitpickers and intruders to those outside that have to get something done.

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Now this criticism would also apply to state capitals, on a smaller scale, but no less protected enclaves of growth and progress. It is made worse by the press release, which is given to flatter the press person’s boss, and, unfortunately in today’s world, everything is not edited by the originator or the transmitter or by the spreader of these things. The glories of the new VA clinic are a bit overshadowed by the vet who comments: ‘It is so big I had to nearly park in Winston-Salem and walk over!’ (but they did have parking)

The point I make is that termination for cause or whim is very real in the non-civil service world. Corporations move to other cities to enable them to shed tenured workers, so one is left with the choice of uprooting or trying to find another job. We do not think you guys are exposed to this reality, and thus do not know. So I think we are exposed to too much ‘make me look good’ coming from inside and not enough get the job done. At the same time, we know you guys only deal with guys like yourself, so not much variety comes in your life.

The politicians do not help with their constant drip, drip about how government employees are bad and private contractors are good. Never mind the lack of cost differential, the loyalty is not to the public mission to be done. Politicians change the rhetoric each cycle, but very little changes. Ronald Reagan got a law passed that any form or request for data had to go through the Office of Management and Budget, so they could monitor the data requests. Well, that just added two weeks to the job, at best, and nothing else changed.

I could rant all day, but I have bread to make and trails to discover.”

—Ken Mc Garrigle

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