The Demoralizing of the Federal Workforce

A job in the government has long been underwritten by the understanding that while you wouldn’t strike it rich on the federal pay scale, you also didn’t need to worry about the corporate world’s mercurial whims. The focus was on serving the public, rather than pursuing profits. The pace could be frustratingly inefficient, but it also was not maddeningly chaotic. And the trade-off came with solid health and retirement benefits.
That grand bargain — deployed for decades to lure talent into the government ranks — is threatened today by a bruising shutdown with no end in sight. And this is the third shutdown in one year.  The situation is exacerbated by a president who appears to view many government workers with contempt, deriding the federal bureaucracy as “the Deep State” and noting derisively via tweet that DJ Trump thinks most government workers are Democrats. WP