Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., is usually numbered among the federal workforce’s best friends on Capitol Hill. But this morning, he evidently decided it was time for a little tough love.
When feds get a new assignment, they “hire a consultant,” Moran told participants at a Partnership for Public Service event. “They don’t take it on themselves.”
“We’ve got too many people, even in managerial positions, who are protecting their comfort zone,” he continued. “I’m really discouraged because these are good people that can do far more than they are attempting to accomplish. They’re worth more than they really give themselves credit for.”
“But when something new is introduced, they look somewhere else.”
The occasion was the Partnership’s official release of a report on the Senior Executive Service. In attendance at the non-partisan organization’s downtown D.C. offices were federal employees, reporters and—yes—consultants. The report’s main finding–that the SES has not lived to Congress’s original vision of a mobile cadre of top civil servants–was one that Moran robustly endorsed.
“We need people who are looking for new challenges, who know what needs to be done, who are not satisfied with what a federal agency is achieving today,” he said. Not long after, Moran was off, with plans to address a noontime National Treasury Employees Union rally on his schedule.
5 Comments
The original idea was sound. The people they hired were less than their resumes stated. Education does not guarantee experience, motivation and ethical behaviour or even common sense! If Rep. Moran wants to make a positive change, unload a bunch of these freeloaders AND the people who hired them. Send a message that good workers will be rewarded and non-workers will be removed permanently. The “good old boy network” is more often than not the cause of government waste and abuse.
This is in response to your opposition to the ad in the Washington Metro which is, to say the least, appropriately critical of the jackass who is in the White House.
Go to Hell, Moran. And the same to your President.
Gary M. Ault
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Concerning Jim Moron’s objection to an ad telling Obama to ‘go to hell’, as far as I’m concerned, Obama should be forcibly removed from office and tried for high treason against our country during time of war!
Mr. Moran, is correct in his observations and I believe them to be true. But the purpose of any bureaucracy is to perpetuate itself. Grow bigger in scope, always have programs in service.
No one really intends for anyone of these government programs to be a lean mean efficient machine that will have a program cycle and power down. Most people in government realize that it’s time to hunker down and ride wave.
I think the first commenter hit most of the points very well.
Congress approves the buget for all Government Agencies, but who verifies that the money is spent wisely? The GAO? Of course. If there is waste, it should be uncovered and removed, just like they do in the private sector, right?
Let’s not lower ourselves by writing disparaging remarks about our leaders. Stick to the issues, if you are capable of doing that.