For decades, most members of Congress—liberals and conservatives alike—understood that reality. Conservatives, to be sure, had a deeper skepticism about government as a problem solver and believed in a smaller government. But they also believed that the government we should have—including protecting against enemies at home and abroad, securing the borders, conducting basic research, building and operating highways and other forms of interstate transportation and commerce, running national parks—should be run well and efficiently, by competent and qualified people.

The kinds of sound management principles that business uses resonated with business-oriented conservatives.

Of course, there were spasms of partisan paranoia over the underlying political leanings of career employees, and partisan tugs of war over how much control administrations would have over career people, and occasional scandals over excessive political influence or pressure. But bipartisan efforts to streamline government service, protect at least modest pay increases, and reform management procedures were the norm, not the exception, including the landmark civil-service reform enacted during the Carter Administration that created the Senior Executive Service to encourage top career-professional managers at the senior levels, and to create a pay and benefit structure that could attract top people.

Of late, the old coalitions have disappeared, and new schisms have developed. One of the most significant is the sharp rise of radical, antigovernment sentiment on the right. This is not “leaner and meaner” government conservatism, but a more visceral attitude of hostility to all government—government as an overweening evil. It is an attitude that rejoiced in the shutdown, that shut out any evidence that closing any part of government could actually hurt people or damage the economy. And it is deep-seated enough among activists that harsher antigovernment rhetoric, and policies designed to make the lives of government employees more difficult, have emerged in full force. Pay freezes, cuts in benefits, attempts to take away any small perks or rewards, fueled in many cases by hyped outrage over real and exaggerated scandals, have taken their toll. It also fuels a push toward more privatization, even where such a move is more costly and more prone to corruption.

But this approach is not the only challenge facing governance in the 21st century; the structure of the career civil-service system is not up to the tasks facing the country in a global economy and in a technology-driven age, with its attendant challenges at home and abroad. The excellent core of professional managers created by the 1978 reforms is nearing a major gap: By 2017, nearly two-thirds of the Senior Executive Service will be eligible for retirement, and it is not clear that another generation of talented managers is waiting in the wings to replace them.