John J. Pitney looks at a pie-in-the-sky proposal to create a public service academy, wondering why H! thinks colleges and universities aren’t educating enough public servants. If it’s a problem, why not just offer scholarships?
Oh, but they’re vouchers.... And a national public service academy is so much more French (not to mention Japanese and Chinese). And wouldn’t a university staffed entirely by professors devoted to governmental solutions to our problems be a wonderful thing? (I’m resisting cracks about how little different it would be from the current "diverse" public and private alternatives.)
Shrillary's proposal reflects a statist mentality which equates a permanent civil-service career with a military career. Military officers do need to be a breed apart. Civilian bureaucrats, in contrast, ought to maintain as much of a "citizen" mindset as possible. In addition, the idea of the government controlling the education of bureaucrats is appalling. So is the idea of the citizenry paying for the bureaucrats' education. Years ago, George Will had an excellent term for this kind of thinking: "Autonarchy" -- government by government.
Why does Hillary believe young people don't want to serve? Why does she believe today's polticians are educated in the Constitution? It seems like Hillary it searching for a something to campaign on, and she is forced to really dig deep.
Is this really the type of national institution that Jefferson had on his mind? Poor Hillary, if she wants to bring Jefferson back to life, I wish she would choose some of his good ideas.
Can you picture a place like that? Every student enrolls with no other career goal than to work for the government, and every one thinks he's going to change the world with that career. (Boy, that's going to be a lot of disillusioned alumni!) Saul Alinsky will be required reading.
It seems to me that a National Public Service Academy would produce a generation of sycophants who would toe the line on public policy. The graduates would be loyal proponents of population control, social and scientific Darwinism, Keynesian economics, globalism a la Tom Friedman, etc. It's almost that way now, but why, I sense the sponsors are thinking, leave it up to chance? I've addressed some of these points on my own blog.