As Public Service Recognition Week begins, the Federal Eye spoke with Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, about this week’s events, President Obama’s recent defense of government and why it’s still hard to get a job with the government:
Federal Eye: What do you hope happens this week?
Stier: There are two goals here: to make sure that the current federal workforce gets some real applause, because they deserve it. And
the second is that the American people get an improved picture of their
public servants.
You got a bit of an assist last weekend from President Obama, who provided his defense of government in a commencement address at the University of Michigan:
He definitely captured a very important point about the nature of our discourse and the importance of our government. I would
respectfully add to the list of things that he suggested that young
people consider and that is actually government service itself.
I think in today’s world, many people no longer think about government service as being part of public service. … In today’s
world, government service has been bled out of public service. We need
to see a change, we need to re-inject government service into public
service. … As important as the nonprofit sector is, without a
vibrant, healthy government, none of the other stuff works.
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