High Calling Has Succumbed To Low Blows
Once upon a time, many a young American would yearn to grow up and work in government - and maybe even become president and worry over this great nation’s foreign or domestic policy options. Now, however, young Americans dream of growing up to work in a law firm or a corporation - maybe becoming the president of General Motors to worry over their stock options.
But if what’s good for General Motors isn’t necessarily good for America, then the fact that a lot of our young people are mainly dedicated to their stock portfolio isn’t good for America either.
Many of us have stopped asking what we can do for our country and are more interested in what our country can do for us.
Long before I entered one of the nation’s least-admired professions, journalism, I considered public service. Years ago at Princeton’s public-policy school, two of my most inspiring classmates were Bo Cutter and Tony Lake. They’re key advisers to President Clinton now, and he’s lucky to have them.
But that was then and this is now. Then, government service was still a premier field in America. You could tell friends that was what you wanted to do without the slightest risk that they would wonder why you couldn’t get a good job. No longer.
I know, I’m supposed to scoff at bureaucrats. Indeed, as a journalist, it’s practically my professional obligation to sneer at them when not exposing them as bumbling incompetents or outright crooks.
But somehow I feel we’re indicting the wrong people and demoralizing a vital sector of society. Worse yet, we adults are probably turning a whole generation of young people away from careers that are vital to America’s future.
Last week, the annual convention of public-policy wonks was held in Washington. But the otherwise prestigious Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management meeting was about as much fun as, say, a reunion of Pete Wilson for President contributors.
Explains Larry Gamm, director of Penn State’s Center for Health Policy Research: “It’s an absolute disaster. Suddenly, public policy is discredited. What really bright student is dying to go into public service now?”
Said Chafes Michael Rothschild, who recently left the University of California, San Diego, to head Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School: “If I accomplish only one thing as the new dean, it’s to figure out some way to help reinstill in our young people a passion for public service. Without it, not only will the Woodrow Wilson School be in trouble, but something much greater and more important in America will be at risk: the public spirit and the public interest.”
It’s fashionable nowadays to claim that government is part of the problem, not the solution. But America will always need government; the only question is not whether we need it at all, but how good we want to make it.
“When I leave government next month, I’ll never use the word bureaucrat the way I used it before I came in,” says Mark Steinberg, a U.S. associate deputy attorney general who’s returning to private law practice in Los Angeles soon. “Just come by this Justice Department building any night around 8 o’clock. See all those lights burning? That’s those so-called lazy bureaucrats working long hours - and for no additional compensation, for no public approbation, for no other reason than to try their damndest to get the public’s interest done right.”
John Emerson, a top White House official who was once Los Angeles deputy city attorney, concurs: “The sort of government person I work with here is extraordinarily committed. They come here to make a difference. It’s a damn shame that currently, government service is not psychologically rewarding at all for these people who work so hard.”
Explains one well-placed Washington official: “Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy brought young students into government. And these young people stayed. They had been made to feel the possibilities of government. Not now. Except for the odd internship here and there, we’re hardly hiring any young people; there are no slots. The ripple effect on college campuses everywhere is, if you are a student, you don’t much think about public service.”
Worries Cutter: “We still have an endless stream of young people who want to work here in the White House. But as a country, we go out of our way to screw this kind of spirit up. We don’t pay our government workers enough and, worse yet, we dump on government all the time. And you know what’s funny? America has had the best civil service in the world. But for how long?”
One night last week, three young people were telling their elders over dinner what a thrill it is to work in the White House. None of them is a day over 25 and each was the kind of college graduate any adult would die to have parented. Not one is planning to stay beyond her internship. All will be leaving for law or business.
And this is the direction American society is heading: away from government. The trend not only makes me sad, it fills me with dread. These are the best and brightest and yet staying in government is not even a serious option.
Who can blame them? Why swim against the tide?
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