Public-Sector Workers Are Heroes, and Democrats Should Say So

https://newrepublic.com/article/195106/public-sector-workers-heroes-democrats

No paywall link
https://archive.li/3vmfK

Elon Musk has, if only by accident, done one good thing. He’s made millions of Americans begin to realize that maybe some of the dedicated public servants who have ended up being caricatured as layabouts in the federal workforce do something vital after all.

It’s been a pet peeve of mine for about 20 years that Democrats have largely failed to defend the civil service. Back when I was at The American Prospect, co-founder Bob Kuttner wrote a piece during the 2004 election arguing that if John Kerry won, he should highlight one federal worker every month—a scientist, an engineer, an educator, what have you—and stand with that person at a press conference explaining how that person had, that month, saved taxpayers money or come up with some innovation that made life a little bit safer or better. It was a great idea then—and it’s still there for the taking, J.B. Pritzker (or whomever).

It would drive home a crucial point that your average person just doesn’t understand: The public sector makes vast and vital contributions to the economy. They’re just not as visible as private-sector contributions.

Everybody understands what the private sector does. It builds things, it makes things, it innovates, it employs people. All that stuff is very visible. The public sector’s contributions, though, are largely invisible. The public sector contributes to the economy by preventing bad things from happening. The most obvious example here is the Federal Aviation Administration. There are 45,000 domestic flights a day in the United States. About 99.999 percent of them reach their destinations safely. But drop that to 98.5 percent, and we have 675 airplane crashes a day. No one would get on a plane. The economy would grind to a halt.

*snip*