This Washington Post Column Is Very Strange

Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor of the Washington Post, has a column out today on the need for federal workforce reforms. Normally, I'd welcome this with open arms. Hiatt has a big platform, and I think it's great that he's using it to call attention to the good work done by civil servants and the need to reform federal workforce processes.

But the piece itself has some serious problems, among them, skipping over the fact that the Obama administration has begun to shape its response to the federal workforce crisis. Hiatt only quotes Max Stier (a frequent source of mine), who condemns the administration's actions to this point. Hiatt doesn't appear to have spoken to anyone in the Obama administration, and he does not mention Michelle Obama's visit to the Office of Personnel Management, the president's challenge to federal employees to come up with ways to improve government, or the fact that Obama's OPM Director John Berry, is in place, along with almost his entire leadership team, much earlier than his predecessors. Not to mention the fact that the Obama administration is conducting a serious review of the largest Bush administration pay-for-performance system, or is working to stop the outsourcing of federal jobs and insource some others that were already contracted out (something Hiatt identifies as a major problem).

There's no question that the problems the federal government faces are serious. The hiring process is undeniably broken. Pay systems have to be reconciled. This is a key moment when government must fix those problems or risk losing out on a wave of enthusiasm for federal employment. But Hiatt says that "on the civilian side, no one feels responsible for making things work better." That does not reflect the reality of the Obama administration's actions. More reporting would have made that clear.