AP Photo In The Arena The Federal Exodus Nonpartisan civil servants are leaving this administration in droves. Here’s why America needs them to stay.

Max Stier is president and CEO of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

The political polarization that—now more than ever—dominates Washington is making federal employees deeply uncomfortable.

On the right, many attack civil servants as part of a putative “deep state” bent on sabotaging President Donald Trump’s agenda, and they want to restrain or get rid of those whom they derisively describe as “unaccountable bureaucrats.”


And on the left, some castigate federal employees as complicit in policies that are “unconscionable,” “undemocratic” or worse. Career public employees on the front lines, they say, should either resign in protest or become part of the #Resistance to impede the Trump administration’s agenda.

Both right and left believe they are being principled, but their actions are undercutting a key aspect of our democratic government—federal civil servants whose jobs are based on merit, not political affiliation, and who serve across administrations to address the country’s most serious problems.

There is no doubt that changes in administration are fraught with tension even in the best of circumstances, and that each shift in power magnifies political differences. During the past year, those political headwinds have been felt across the government at agencies ranging from the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency to the FBI and the CIA. But the federal government and its employees are not the sole purview of any one president or political party. They work for us, not Donald Trump or Barack Obama or George W. Bush. And while it’s easy to get buffeted by the controversies of the day, most of the important work of the agencies transcend politics.

We still need doctors and scientists to protect public health, emergency management professionals to respond to disasters, seasoned diplomats to represent American interests abroad and cybersecurity experts to protect vital computer networks—regardless of who occupies the Oval Office or controls Congress. We need apolitical professionals to address key economic issues, run our national parks, maintain the rule of law, guard our civil liberties, care for veterans and provide a wide array of social services. And our policymakers need their fact-based, informed analysis and advice.

Fundamentally, we need our government to keep us safe and prosperous in a world of increasingly complex threats, and we need the best and the brightest to serve and help secure America’s future.

While political leaders set the tone and direction of any administration, those presidential appointees have no chance of making smart, informed decisions or having those decisions converted into meaningful action if they are deprived of the knowledge and capability that civil servants provide. (Whether political appointees avail themselves of that expertise is another matter, and our democracy will hold an administration accountable through elections and the judgment of the people.)

In the here and now, however, our government is suffering from a debilitating outflow of highly capable people and a paucity of new talent coming into the civil service—an exodus driven in significant measure by concerns over the policies and the rhetoric of the Trump administration and some in Congress.

During the first nine months of 2017, 79,637 federal employees either quit or retired, compared with 56,036 who left the government during the first nine months of 2009 when Obama was president, a difference of 23,601. Those departing since Trump took office include more than 800 employees from the EPA, about 100 of whom are scientists, and about 12 percent of the State Department’s foreign affairs specialists.

And the government these individuals are leaving behind isn’t getting any younger. The data for fiscal 2017 show that just 6 percent of all full-time federal employees were between the ages of 20 and 30 compared with 21 percent of all employees in the private sector, a statistic that does not bode well for the future of the career federal workforce.

Every person’s decision to leave government service is appropriately an individual choice, but the collective impact could be devastating and create a huge void at a time when the knowledge of experienced professionals and the skills of the younger generation are most essential. It would set a dangerous precedent if the tug and pull from the left and the right returns us to the old spoils system through the back door—maintaining the appearance of merit-based employment when only those who share the policy and political views of a president take or stay in government jobs. We certainly don’t want to live in a country where only those who voted for whoever is president at any given time serve in the military, work for the intelligence community, make decisions on small-business loans or the prosecution of our federal criminal laws.

In 1961 at the height of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy described government service as “a proud and lively career,” and talked about the “honor” federal employees should feel serving the government “in that hour of our nation’s need.” Times may be different, but that hour of need persists.

There is no better place for individuals to make a positive difference in people’s lives and for the country than through government service, and this is certainly true now when the times are most difficult.

