The death of expertise-based civil service

[Burke Bro]

Donald Trump is the Andrew Jackson of our time. Between the imminent death of Chevron at the hands of the Supreme Court, project 2025, and the likelihood that if Trump wins, he will pardon himself or otherwise waive away the January 6 charges, we are in for a huge expansion of presidential power.  The federal civil service system, for all of the good it’s done in reorganizing post war American society, is too depersonalized and incompatible with the values of rural/small town America. Universities, which are at the heart of the system, are now losing power.  I truly think that expertise-based civil service is on its death bed. We are in for a return of the spoils system, except instead of loyalty being rewarded for political party membership, loyalty to individual presidents will be rewarded. Political realignments will no longer span multiple presidential administrations. Instead, each administration will feature a huge shift in policy as each individual president will reconstruct the entire federal bureaucracy to be compatible with their cult of personality. With each successive administration, previous norms will be disregarded and the presidency will gradually devolve into a dictatorship.

How do you feel about this assessment of the current state of American politics?

[OSR stands with Israel]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

[Ferguson97]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

[OSR stands with Israel]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

A Bunch of unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. That is not in their authority and thank god SCOTUS stopped them from doing so.

[Burke Bro]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

It was inevitable that large federal agencies were going to overstep their authority at some point as they became immovable parts of the American government. But centralizing authority doesn’t return that authority to Congress, where it should be. It just makes the president more powerful. All of this kind of reinforces traditional conservative/Goldwateresque arguments about why small government is important and why big government is a danger to democracy.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

A Bunch of unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. That is not in their authority and thank god SCOTUS stopped them from doing so.

You continue to post this falsehood. The EPA was not 'making law' they were enforcing the Clean Air Act which Congress had passed into law and gave the EPA the power to enforce.

You are correct that Congress had previously voted down cap and trade but the EPA has a separate mandate to determine the most efficient way to enforce environmental laws and decided that cap and trade was the best way to go.

Finally of course, if Congress had a problem with that, it has full authority to overturn the EPA decision and even to strip it of these powers if it so chooses.

The Supreme Court completely overstepped its authority and legislated from the bench in substituting itself for Congress here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If this happens, it might be the one thing that actually causes America to lose its status as a superpower. It's simply not possible to be a functioning modern state without a professional civil service. At most, you end up like Russia: a country that has to be taken seriously because it has nukes and natural resources, but that's utterly incompetent at achieving any of its goals internally or internationally.

Of course, I don't expect the civil service to go down without a fight.

[GoTfan]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

"I support the return of the Spoils System because the civil service has too much power"

I can't see any contradiction with that line of thinking.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

"I support the return of the Spoils System because the civil service has too much power"

I can't see any contradiction with that line of thinking.

Both the President and the legislature are elected officials

[Upper Canada Tory]

Universities, which you described as the heart of the system, have largely turned into inefficient and outdated bureaucracies that recieve absurdly high amounts of taxpayer dollars to churn out degrees of dubious quality or value for large sums of money, usually for the purpose of preserving a societal elite (which I imagine you see as synonymous with the civil service).

As others have mentioned, a civil service that values expertise over serving the public is constantly at risk of abusing its power and encroaching on democracy by making laws instead of democratically elected lawmakers.

I think ideally, an expertise-based civil service is good, but it needs to be held accountable by elected officials. The university system desperately needs to be fixed in order to provide degrees that there is actually a need for rather than wasting taxpayer money in order to preserve existing inequality under the guise of protecting the civil service.

[LostFellow]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

A Bunch of unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. That is not in their authority and thank god SCOTUS stopped them from doing so.

Hmmm...

[OSR stands with Israel]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

A Bunch of unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. That is not in their authority and thank god SCOTUS stopped them from doing so.

Hmmm...

Yes it’s their job to stop these agencies from abusing their power

[Ferguson97]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

A Bunch of unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. That is not in their authority and thank god SCOTUS stopped them from doing so.

Hmmm...

Yes it’s their job to stop these agencies from abusing their power

Why is it an abuse of power?

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

The reason for this is way too much power for concentrated in these institutions and they started to overstep their authority. For example the EPA tried to implement a cap and trade system even though congress rejected such a system which is a clear sign that the EPA had moved away from just enforcing laws to creating them .

If you are gonna centralize power like this then yes it’s only fair the president gets their way because at least they are elected unlike all these bureaucrats. Of course their are some exceptions but the civil service should not act like it’s own branch of government under any circumstance.

Why do you view bureaucrats doing this as a bad thing?

A Bunch of unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to make laws. That is not in their authority and thank god SCOTUS stopped them from doing so.

Hmmm...

Yes it’s their job to stop these agencies from abusing their power

And whose job is it to stop SCOTUS from abusing its power?

Regardless of the makeup of the court, imagine if on Monday they announced there is no right to free speech in the Constitution. Why should these unelected bureaucrats have the final word?

[Reactionary Libertarian]

The civil service exam was abolished in 1972 because whites did better than blacks.
The civil service is unionized and uses the seniority system.
What "expertise-based" civil service?

The most professional and effective civil service is Singapore. Interestingly, the polices in Singapore are not remotely similar to the policies advocated for by the people decrying the decay of the "expertise-based" civil service.

[Del Tachi]

The federal workforce is much too large nowadays to be run as anything other than a professional outfit.  The executive leadership and higher-level management of the executive departments may be political appointees (as they probably should be) but the pencil pushers will always be career guys. 

[Frodo]

Not only should we not get rid of the professional civil service, we should work to fully professionalize other aspects of our federal government, and rid ourselves of the last remnants of the Jacksonian spoils system -like ambassadorships, for instance.  

[Damocles]

What, exactly, is wrong with someone choosing to build their career in the civil service? Should we not be happy that someone who very easily could have gone to the private sector chooses to serve us, instead? Should we allow rules, principles, and policies to bend at the whim of any particular person who manages to accrue a viral following? One would think that that, if anything, would only increase the degree of arbitariness and inconsistency with which our government may operate, no?

Private sector bureaucracy exists for a reason, too. I'm happy that Karen over in HR has a job, making sure that all policies are applied evenly, and that employees aren't fired for arbitrary reasons that could expose the company to legal problems. I'm happy that Steven over in Procurement has a job, auditing prospective suppliers' business practices to make sure that they aren't using child labor or slave labor in their plants. I'm happy that Timothy over in Training has a job, familiarizing new employees with the various hazards they may face in the course of their work, and highlighting all the mechanisms they can use to report such hazards.

The point is that getting rid of the professional civil service will only make the federal government, and the state governments, more arbitrary and prone to making poor decisions - not less so. The frustrations that lead to this sentiment are borne from more structuralist concerns that just "firing DC bureaucrats" won't fix overnight, and more importantly, can't fix. I'd much rather prefer a world where consistent policies and procedures exist, where bias and favoritism are controlled as much as possible, and where those who choose to serve us have as equal an opportunity to do so among their peers.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Shame that in this country the head of the executive branch and thousands of his appointees are not answerable to the legislature. Seems relevant.