Republicans are trying to kill public service; Wes Moore launches counteroffensive

Attacks on Fauci extend Reaganesque attacks on government and the spirit of service

The renewed attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci by Republican senators were disgusting — and, in the case of car salesman Bernie Moreno of Ohio, profane and disgusting — but they were not only about Fauci’s leadership during the pandemic.

Those attacks emanated from the “starve the beast” doctrine that goes back to Ronald Reagan — the cynical view that government does more harm than good, and every Republican must take a cudgel to the federal budget (except for defense spending) and oppose further taxing the rich, regulating business and protecting the environment.

And they must denigrate the government enough that it discourages Americans from serving in it.

It was Grover Norquist, a conservative consultant who, at Reagan’s behest, came up with the GOP’s anti-tax pledge.

“I don’t want to abolish government,” Norquist famously said. “I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

You can draw a direct line from Norquist to Russell Vought, the Christian Nationalist and architect of Project 2025 who today serves as Trump’s budget director. It was Vought who said: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work.”

More than 300,000 federal workers have left or been forced out of their jobs since Trump took office again and unleashed Vought and Elon Musk. Their cuts appeared to be random, but were actually directed at government programs conservatives hate — those that address climate change, protect national lands, regulate a wide array of businesses, serve marginalized communities and address racism.

And the brain-drains caused by these cuts — at the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Justice and the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency — have already been substantial.

So that’s why I see last week’s attacks on Fauci as part of the five-decade scheme to not only trim the size of government but reduce the desire of Americans to seek careers in it.

What’s the message from the Senate majority? If you’re smart and skilled, take your professional ambitions elsewhere, maybe even to another country; we have no need for you in the federal government.

It’s hard to measure just yet, but the Trump regime has likely delivered a hard blow to the spirit of public service — the desire of patriotic Americans to take careers in making their fellow citizens healthier, safer, better educated, better housed and better prepared for the effects of climate change.

Trump has broken the trust that such patriots could have rewarding careers in government service without fear of political interference or retribution.

Denigrating the federal workforce, as Republicans have done, will make the future employment of dedicated, competent government workers — from federal prosecutors to Medicare managers to NIH scientists — difficult.

It will take a renewed effort to recruit competent Americans to fill the depleted ranks.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, elected chairman of the National Governors Association over the weekend, has for years pushed paid public service as a way of getting young people employed and engaged in their communities. Scaled up, his ideas could also be a way of rebuilding the spirit of public service.

Moore campaigned on it in 2022 and came into office with a plan for a first-in-the-nation service year program, paying Maryland high school graduates ($15 an hour with a $6,000 award at completion) to work in public service posts before moving on to jobs or college.

The state’s Service Year Option became law in 2023.

One of the goals, Moore said, was to “strengthen civic bonds, restore a spirit of community and call on our fellow citizens to get to know each other, create new friendships and new partnerships and not simply retreat to our corners of political ideology or partisan talking points.”

In Oklahoma City this weekend, Moore launched “Service United,” his signature initiative as NGA chairman, with $10 million from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and the Schultz Family Foundation to create and expand paid service programs across the country.

Service United is modeled after Maryland’s program.

“This initiative,” Moore said, “reminds us that service can bring people together to solve problems, bridge divides and build a stronger future.”

It’s refreshing to hear a political leader speak of public service and the common good, essentially presenting a counteroffensive to the persistent Republican attacks.

“At a time of deep division, I firmly believe that service will save us,” Moore said.

It will be interesting to see if Republican governors have any enthusiasm for Moore’s plan.

Even if not, the 47-year-old Moore has a good theme to preach as his national profile rises. Young people need to hear the call, an important first step in rebuilding the spirit of public service that for five decades Republicans have been trying to crush.