system. The articles below quote his comments aimed at bureaucratic, red tape issues dealing with waste, fraud and
. It sounds more like his emphasis was about improving or modernizing the civil service
instead of getting rid of it.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTVjY2I4NmRkMTI0MDZkNzQ3OWM1OWM0NmQ2NTYyMDE=
"Whether it’s the Katrina response, the problems at Walter Reed Medical Center, bungled border security, or the IRS and FBI which can’t get their computer systems working, it seems like we’ve lost our ability to take care of some of the most basic duties of government.
Not that this problem is new. For decades, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has told us, time and time again, that we’ve lost control of the waste and fraud and mismanagement in many of our most important agencies. And it’s getting worse.
A big part of the problem is our outmoded civil-service system that makes it too hard to hire good employees and too hard to fire bad ones. The bureaucracy has become gargantuan, making accountability and reform very difficult."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009798
The next president, according to Mr. Thompson, needs to exercise strong leadership "and get down in the weeds and
fix a civil-service system that makes it too hard to hire good employees and too hard to fire bad ones." He doesn't offer specifics on what to do, but notes the "insanity" of the new Congress pushing for the unionization of homeland security employees only five years after it rejected the notion in the wake of 9/11. "Should we tie ourselves up in bureaucratic knots with the challenges we may have to face?" he asks in wonderment.
http://thehill.com/john-fortier/the-forecast-for-fred-2007-06-06.html
Thompson became chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee early in his career. In this capacity,
he worked on a number of relatively non-partisan government reform issues such as improving the appointments process and modernizing the civil service. He worked well with ranking member Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). One of his most significant legislative achievements was shepherding through legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security.