0
Votes

Holmes: United States lacking Public Service Academy

Column photo

By Tyler Holmes

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

They will say the night of Nov. 4, 2008 “was the night things changed,” the night the “walls that they put up…fell down.” And they will say January 20, 2009 was the day they “sang hallelujah.”

As far as having a truly diverse governing body is concerned (one whose majority is not old white men), perhaps these will truly be days worth remembering years hence. But when it comes to truly reforming the culture of Washington — one of our new president’s campaign promises — “the fight ain’t fair.”

nutgraf

But 90 percent of civil service leadership will be eligible for retirement in ten years.

Just take the Obama bailout plan as an example.

For starters, the president hoped to enact the legislation on day one; an LA Times article suggests the White House now hopes for passage by mid-February. Meanwhile, the package may yet grow bigger from its current $825 billion to aid struggling banks. Remember, this is for a president with a 78-member margin in the House and 15-member margin in the Senate in his favor.

To his credit, the president mentioned in his inaugural address what his presidency should truly be measured by: “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.”

We need effective governance; more importantly, we need an effective system of implementation run by everyday Americans. Currently, there are approximately 1.8 million civil workers in the federal government. But 90 percent of civil service leadership will be eligible for retirement in ten years.

That’s where the U.S. Public Service Academy comes in. House Resolution 1671 (S. 960 in the Senate) aims to establish a university modeled after our military academies. For 5,000 or so undergraduate students, a free four-year education will be offered in exchange for five years of work in the public sector.

There are existing public administration and service programs around the country; however, fewer and fewer graduates are actually entering the public sector. In 2001, the Washington Times reported that elite public policy schools were designing more programs to mirror and support student interest in business and nonprofit careers.

Still, adding expenditures in times such as these is not favorable and the academy will cost more than $200 million annually.

This is both a symbolic and a real gesture, displaying the significance of serving the public in our government; of having some of the most motivated and creative students (“we’re faster and we’re never scared”) improving the function of everything from FEMA to Homeland Security to public education. That will make government work — for all of us.

— Holmes is an Overland Park freshman in political science.

Comments

Holmes: United States lacking Public Service Academy

I think this is a great article. As a young person, I want to see a US Public Service Academy.

Holmes: United States lacking Public Service Academy

this sounds like a really cool idea, where can I sign up?

Advertisement