GovernmentExecutive.com

Don Kettl cut to the chase in his op-ed in Sunday's Post on civil service reform: "The civil service system that drives the bureaucracy is broken. Every careful look at it over the last decade, including two commissions and a series of reports by the Government Accountability Office, has concluded that a century's worth of personnel problems have become encrusted like barnacles on the ship of state, making it ever harder to steer." That's why unions are the last organized constituency left putting up any resistance to junking the General Schedule at this stage. Even Tom Davis' declarations that we shouldn't rush into anything seem tepid now. With Defense, Homeland Security, the FAA, the IRS and others leaving the traditional civil service system in their dust, the rushing was over a long time ago.