A Dog's Life

Imaging, for example being forced to admit that you earn your keep at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and respectfully humble yourself before a boss who is none other than Anne Burford. Jokes from the in0laws could wear thin after a short time.

And what of the earnest arms control specialist watching the Senate trials and tribulatioins of this administration's pick for the Geneva table-a man who has publicly belittled the worth of arms negotiation?

The phemomenon is not original to the Reagan administration. More than one president has swept into office on a wave of anti-govenment sentiment. When Carter arrived in the capital, his keen distrust of the natives undobtedly miffed more than one D.C. veteran. But Reagan's attacks on government cut deeper-they denounce not merely the efficiency but the very raison d'etre of fistfuls of government agencies.

Reagan's philosophies seemed destined to provoke a new brand of despair among Washington regulars. With telling prescience. Garry Trudeau last year penned several sketches of a distraught EPA employee whose premonitions of policy reversals sent him scurrying to the narrow ledge outside his office window. The scene could have transpired equally well at any number of federal agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the Department of Education.

While he didn't jump. Edward A. Kurent, a senior enforcement lawyer at the EPA, did resign last wek, saying his office can no longer do its job properly. Kurent cited "the fatigue and low morale of the staff" and pointed the finger at Burford for undermining the agency's enforcement efforts. Similar frustration prompted civil rights attorneys at the Justice Department to sign petitions twice last your opposting administration policy in that area.

Demoralization runs even higher among RIFed civil servants--federal workers ousted under Reagan's in Force. Robert L. Hill, a longtime human services worker and one of the 10,000 government workers whose jobs were eliminated under Reagan, told the Washington Post recently, "It makes you wonder if what you worked at all these years was a lie." Another RIF victim echoed, "I was shaped by JFK. I went into the Peace Corps. I have actively chosen not to work for profit. Now the public interest seems to have to do with greed and bombers and tax breaks for big business."

Nor is discontent limited to a cadre of high level Washington liberals. Federal meat inspectors are protesting the Reagan administration's loosening of meat inspection standards, including proposals to speed up the number of birds to be inspected per minute from 70 to 105. More than 6000 workers last month endorsed and verified charges by consumer activist Ralph Nader that the new policies threaten public health. The Agriculture Department denies these charges but acknowledges. "The need to target inspection resources in an era of federal financial austerity is producing morale problems between labor and management."

Hostility toward government workers from the outside is nothing new, but there is a serious danger that this new, internal criticism will drive talented governmetn workers into the already-alluring private sector. Regardless of differing claims as to the proper sphere of government activity, it clearly serves no one's interests to make members of the federal bureaucracy frustrated and defensive. Perhaps the time has come for the public to throw a supportive cloak around these naked civil servants, since the President's policies clearly work to strip them of their self-respect.

No longer the engineers of a great new society, federal workers have been left to flounder without a guiding ideology. The less-ismore theory of government exhorts these workers to embrace the liquidation of their livelihood and the ideals for which they have worked. Their fellowship is the camaraderie of a demolition crew, sharing a drink around the wrecking ball.