| Line 32: |
Line 32: |
| | The immediate impetus for ending patronage and introducing civil service reform was the assassination of President [[James Garfield]] by a disgruntled low level campaign worker who was by-passed and felt Garfield owed him a job. The spoils system was rife with [[corruption]] and [[cronyism]]. Under the spoils system, when voters rebelled and elected the opposition, everyone in an incumbent political machine lost their government job. The see-saw wholesale turnover of government workers created instability in the institutions of government. | | The immediate impetus for ending patronage and introducing civil service reform was the assassination of President [[James Garfield]] by a disgruntled low level campaign worker who was by-passed and felt Garfield owed him a job. The spoils system was rife with [[corruption]] and [[cronyism]]. Under the spoils system, when voters rebelled and elected the opposition, everyone in an incumbent political machine lost their government job. The see-saw wholesale turnover of government workers created instability in the institutions of government. |
| | | | |
| | + | ===The Era of Big Government=== |
| | [[Teddy Roosevelt]]'s rise to national prominence as a "progressive" reformer began with implementing civil service reform and ending the patronage system in the New York City Police Department, and later as governor by implementing a state level civil service system. | | [[Teddy Roosevelt]]'s rise to national prominence as a "progressive" reformer began with implementing civil service reform and ending the patronage system in the New York City Police Department, and later as governor by implementing a state level civil service system. |
| | | | |
| Line 50: |
Line 51: |
| | It's no exaggeration to say, many of these New Deal economists and civil servants in the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy era]] of the 1950s fled to [[Maoist]] [[China]] to implement their real ambitions after they were suspected of attempting to subvert and overthrow the US [[Constitution]] and government.<ref>Unlike the landlords of sharecroppers, these former American civil servants turned Chinese Communist civil servants simply outlawed "landlordism," and exterminated the landlords, saving the state treasury billions in agricultural subsidies.</ref> Their time in China is memorialized in history as the [[Three Years of Disasters]]. | | It's no exaggeration to say, many of these New Deal economists and civil servants in the [[McCarthyism|McCarthy era]] of the 1950s fled to [[Maoist]] [[China]] to implement their real ambitions after they were suspected of attempting to subvert and overthrow the US [[Constitution]] and government.<ref>Unlike the landlords of sharecroppers, these former American civil servants turned Chinese Communist civil servants simply outlawed "landlordism," and exterminated the landlords, saving the state treasury billions in agricultural subsidies.</ref> Their time in China is memorialized in history as the [[Three Years of Disasters]]. |
| | | | |
| − | ===The Era of Big Government=== | + | ===The Sixties=== |
| | :{{See also|Great Society|Clinton Administration}} | | :{{See also|Great Society|Clinton Administration}} |
| | The generation that fought [[World War II]] were convinced [[Keynesian]]s - that government debt and spending was the key to prosperity. And the more of it, the better. President [[Lyndon Johnson]] and the Democratic Congress that rubber stamped his projects fully believed they could mount a major war effort by drafting the nation's teenage unemployed, pursue massive social programs in the War on Poverty, and fund ambitious scientific research in the space race to land a man-on-the-moon, all simultaneously. There were no shortages of government jobs, or civil servants to hand out money during the 1960s. | | The generation that fought [[World War II]] were convinced [[Keynesian]]s - that government debt and spending was the key to prosperity. And the more of it, the better. President [[Lyndon Johnson]] and the Democratic Congress that rubber stamped his projects fully believed they could mount a major war effort by drafting the nation's teenage unemployed, pursue massive social programs in the War on Poverty, and fund ambitious scientific research in the space race to land a man-on-the-moon, all simultaneously. There were no shortages of government jobs, or civil servants to hand out money during the 1960s. |