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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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052989
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05298900.038
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1990-09-22
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NATION, Page 32Too Righteous?Congress admits its new rules scare off public servants
Just since November, more than 30 top officials at the Defense
Department, the Internal Revenue Service and NASA have announced
their resignations rather than abide by tough new ethics laws
designed to block federal employees from using their jobs as a fast
track to riches in the private sector. Taken aback by the
departures and complaints by defense contractors, Congress last
week voted to delay the new measures for 60 days.
The sudden flight from public service highlights an already
vexing problem. A score of people approached for the once coveted
Pentagon job of Under Secretary for Acquisition have refused to
submit to the nomination process. At the Department of Energy, five
people have rejected offers to serve as the $80,700-a-year
Assistant Secretary in charge of nuclear energy. "I'm having
trouble persuading people with needed skills to join the
Government," complains Energy Secretary James Watkins. "They might
swallow the lower pay, but they balk when they learn ethics laws
could bar them from returning to their old jobs."
Departing Government officials are now barred from working on
specific projects they handled while they were in Government. Under
new terms that were to take effect May 16, retiring federal
procurement officials, for example, would have been forbidden to
make any contact with their former agency for up to two years.
"Unfortunately, there aren't many monks qualified as nuclear
engineers who want to become an Assistant Secretary," says Chase
Untermeyer, director of the office of presidential personnel. Mark
Abramson, director of the Center for Excellence in Government, says
top jobs are going begging because of "low pay, anxiety over
postemployment restrictions and the feeling that high Government
service is life in a fishbowl."
Congress is considering ways to help, at least for the most
technical jobs. During hearings, Georgia's Senator Sam Nunn told
Watkins he might consider a waiver that would permit some Energy
Department employees to be released from Government pay caps. "We
need some carrot to get good people into Government," said Nunn.
"Till now all we've been showing is the stick."