Childish reasons

There is always, somewhere, that optimistic eight year old, who was sweet and nice, thinking that all was for the best. Mommy and Papa were always right. America was the greatest country in the entire world. Our Private Sector was on top, the way we lived was the envy of all other countries. There were never ending amusements. There were movies. In many of the movies I watched Government employees were portrayed as decent, hardworking and efficient people. They kept us safe every day, and were there to serve us. I had my grandfather as proof. He had been a GS-18 in his time, had sent four kids to college without having to borrow any money, and his wife could stay at home. He owned his own house and his own car. To me, the life my grandfather could provide for his family, minus some of the discipline in the household, was the American dream. A decent home, a good car, well fed children, no debt worries, easy access to high culture, holidays on Delaware beaches and in Philadelphia. 

Simple reasons 

Of course that eight year old kid gets bullied, struggles with his Asperger's Syndrome and sees enough injustice and scary things to start to question his optimism. For a start he is considered "a problem" because he has Asperger's Syndrome and sees right wing people on television claiming that he does not in fact have a psychological condition, but is in fact just an obnoxious spoiled brat who cannot "man up" as it were. 

Since these people are given air time on all major news networks, this child begins to feel worthless. He is obnoxious, his bullies are right. He should stay quiet, he should learn to control himself. Then he learns the same Government he admires acknowledges that what he does have is a genuine problem, and that it is not necessarily a bad thing. The kid knows this. He is focused. He reads books, he likes talking because he loves the English language. He is peculiar but not in a way that is conceivably harmful. For him the phrase "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help" is a message of hope. Someone cares. He feels safer. If anybody thinks differently, it must all be a terrible misunderstanding. 

Ten years later that kid has learned more about Government, about what it does, what it has done, the miracles it has performed across the world for mankind. He also learns that there is a small, but highly influential segment of the population that wants to kill Government. It does not want employees to have protection from the tyranny of their employers. As a person who has witnessed their mother reduced to a nervous wreck because she is attacked by her bosses for speaking the truth, that same mother afraid to speak out against what is happening because she fears losing the few tangible benefits that come with her job, I know truly that to assume there is such a thing as "organic" enlightened management is nonsense. Of course there are always enlightened managers but they are desperately outnumbered by those with a slave master mentality. 

Work your employees as hard as you can for as long as you can, to get the maximum output from them in the minimum timeframe. Some recognize that this ultimately lowers productivity. People become sullen, they think of how to dodge work and goof off. They burn out, and the vicious cycle repeats itself. It is self defeating, it does not work. Sometimes out of the narrow self interest of needing maximum output for a very long stretch, some managers do not do this. Often they are also motivated by a simple ability to empathize and understand that if the roles were reversed they would want to be treated well. As a means of seeing this vision of management triumph, the Department of Labor (though not exclusively for this purpose) was set up. However the Economic elites, being driven by short term profit, cannot see the benefits of this vision. They want what they want NOW! The protective force of Government means their employees fear them less, they don't have to put up with it, they can stay in the job because the Government will protect them from abuse. This is simply unbearable to a group of people who think that the Lord Boss should reign omnipotent in the workplace. 

So, with a lot of people who wish to see Government downsized for a variety of reasons, they attack Government and wish to dismantle all those parts of Government which could conceivably interfere with business and they do this in a number of ways. I for one have no interest, and neither do 99.99% of the American people, in seeing this happen. I want the Government to be there to protect me, and in a serious way. That does not happen anymore and its role is being undermined still further. This task, the destruction of any true job security, the stripping of protection from the ravages of the capitalist system, and the demoralization of the Civil Service is accomplished using the employment of nefarious means. 

In the following article I will start with Federal pay