I couldn't agree more on this statement. An organization such as our government, whom Americans trust and count on, needs to be fully prepared to operate in a crisis. There is not a 'cruise control' function that the government can turn on to get the job done. Rather, it will be necessary to operate the controls manually, and it will take people to operate those controls. I think that so many people unintentionally make great plans for our response capabilities, but count on the machine to 'cruise' up to the operating speed desired without giving some real attention to the people needed. Now, there is a long standing opinion that many people have about going to work for the federal government. Not many would make it their first choice for employment. For whatever reasons, the government needs to realize that there needs to be an 'attractant' or incentive in order to gain the interest of potential qualified applicants/employees. Quite honestly, it will require not only competitive remuneration but, perhaps even more importantly, genuine empowerment of the employee. Employees need to be able to make decisions and implement critical actions. There needs to be a simplified, yet thorough, structure in which the employees can operate. They need to be capable of performing while encouraged and allowed to implement their actions without getting locked into beaurecracy's grip. Their functioning doesn't need to be crippled by red tape or else their interest level will diminish and they will leave their government position and go back into the normal workforce.

This is true - especially for the higher / managerial levels of government. However, the nature of the beast is that political parties will fill the highest levels of government with politcal allies who typically are not qualified for the post (has anyone forgotten about FEMA one year ago?).

We already have good people in government. What about our union fire fighters? What about the dedicated professionals in our law enforcement agencies? Why don't we work on providing a decent wage to these dedicated men and women? Additionally, those who are already in the public service, let's protect their benefits instead of trying to strip their pensions everytime we need a budget cut.

If you want better people in government, create better jobs for them. Higher salaries, better benefits, and assistance with student loan repayment would be a good start. But in reality, recent grads are forced to accept higher paying positions in the private sector. If by chance "really talented grads" go into government service, they use the jobs as stepping stones to catapult themselves into higher paying management positions in the private sector.

Being a public servant hardly means anything anymore. It seems that with Reagan, and hyped more ever since, that we are all lazy, over paid, need to be "drowned in the bathtub."

While one does their best to keep in their hearts true "public service," it's hard given all of the pressures of politicals bringing in their family and buds, who then bring in theirs... and many become perm. civil service at high grades with virtually no experience (and blocking room for career growth of others).

Many other negative things to be said, and after working for each and every president since and including Carter, I can honestly say, with no political agenda (Independent), this is by far the worst seen... by far and a way the worst.

I would in fact highly recommend such public service, however, to good and qualified people who want to make good things happen. There are few places where despite the "system," you can still affect things hopefully in a progressive way (if they don't kill you first).