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Let me start by saying that I appreciate your giving me this award, but I'd like to accept this award not just for me, but for everyone in government service. Speaking for myself, the past three and one-half years have given me the extraordinary opportunity to take my experience of 26 years in the private sector, dealing with markets, the international arena, and all the rest, and turn it to dealing with issues of the nation. It's been challenging, at times frustrating, but rewarding in a special way. In a bigger sense, I think this award is very important because you are doing something far too few people in the country do, which is providing recognition for public service. And I'd like to use this occasion to discuss with you, a very influence audience, the important subject of government.
The oldest argument in the history of this country is over the appropriate role of government. The political parties have often traded positions in their advocacy of more versus less. But today, something different has happened. The national debate over the role and scope of government has been dominated by derogation of government and of public service.
I am emphatically not saying we should not debate the role of government and how to improve government. These are legitimate and critical areas of debate, and central issues with respect to national policy. I believe every view should be heard, as long as that is done within the confines of law.
However, as I said a moment ago, today the debate is dominated by criticism and derogation. Just think about the voices we hear. First, there are the political and intellectual voices that argue that the scope of government and its role in society should be very limited. Second, there are the popular voices on talk radio that disparage the government and the people who serve in government. And third, there are the voices of violence. Those are the voices of some in the militias and elsewhere who are actually threatening federal employees way beyond what the public sees.
The Oklahoma City bombing, obviously, has received enormous publicity, but there are many, many other instances you have not heard of. Last fall I visited Treasury's our Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in St. Paul. They'd just broken up a group suspected of planning to bomb an Internal Revenue Service office. I was at an anti-violence event in Maryland a few months ago. A woman told me she'd been working with a school to help convince youngsters not to use guns. She said someone claiming to be from the Michigan Militia threatened her life, and she was worried. The Interior Secretary has told me of case after case of Park Rangers and others being threatened. For those of you who use the internet, try this one day: type the word militia under a search area and stand back, then start reading some of this material.
What's completely missing in the public discussion of government is balance, and that has serious consequences. One result is that it becomes difficult to get public and congressional support for the functions of government, such as forward-looking economic policies that benefit all Americans. Another profoundly important result is that it goes to the core of our social fabric.
In many ways we live in an era of great change, filled with hope and opportunity. But this is also an age of anxiety, when families are concerned about economic dislocation and social and moral issues. Too many Americans experiencing all these uncertainties also believe the institutions of government they have historically looked to to find solutions to their problems, are broken. And then, they are more likely to turn to those who offer harsher rhetoric and more extreme courses of action. All this feeds extremism in our society, the extremism we see in some of the militias and hate groups in this nation. At that point, the idea that America is a society where a Constitution and government and people working together can produce progress for all Americans ceases to be.
This negativism about government -- this lack of balance -- also makes it difficult to get public and congressional support for the functions of government, whatever the broader political judgment as to the appropriate scope of government at any given time.
I think it is imperative for the future of our country, that respect for government and public service be re-established, again, whatever the judgment as to the appropriate scope.
In that spirit, I'd like to make three points.
First, government matters. Second, government has very large numbers of talented people committed to public service. And third, government is deeply, broadly and most importantly effectively involved in a reinventing program, just as any business that wants to succeed must be in a constant mode of reinvention to be efficient, effective and customer sensitive.
If I might elaborate.
First, government matters. I will not this evening discuss the wide array of functions government performs that will not be performed in any other way in our market economy and that matter greatly to Americans. But I would like to touch on a few experiences that take this observation from the philosophical to the practical.
Five miles from here as the crow flies is the South Bronx. Those of you who haven't been there lately should go. You will see a vast area of attractive, rehabilitated multi-family housing and new single family housing, and the beginnings of businesses returning and jobs being created. Why? Businesses and communities are coming together with the help of the Community Reinvestment act, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Government is working, hand-in-hand with the private sector, as the catalyst in addressing what may be our most critical domestic policy issue, the problems of the inner city -- a job no other institution in our society can do.
The people who fish in our nation's streams, swim in our rivers, or for that matter breathe New York City air, know that the air and water are clearer today than 20 years ago. A few years ago, I was flying at low altitude over an area where I go fishing, and you could see the undermining effects of massive developmental disregard of one of the nation's most remarkable natural treasures. And 20 years ago, then Mayor Lindsay talked about not being comfortable breathing air he couldn't see. Today, that national treasure is healing, and New York City's air is appropriately invisible. Government played the critical role in each case, and, in the final analysis, only through government -- directly or as a catalyst -- will adequate environmental protection be accomplished, though obviously this needs to be approached with sensible balance.
Finally, about two years ago, I was interviewed by a European weekly magazine. In the middle of the interview the journalist said that the United States was doing well now, but that 10 or 15 years from now we'd be a second tier economy because of our problems with schools and the inner cities. These are issues that can only be successfully addressed through effective government.
So, government matters. My second point was the people in government. I've now spent almost three and one-half years in government, a year and a half of it at Treasury, and two years in the White House. When people ask me what I find most surprising about government, I invariably say that one of the things that has most struck me is the quality and commitment of so many people I've worked with. In my time at Treasury the people who work with me have done the legal work on a $20 billion loan guarantee for Mexico, fought extraordinarily hard to keep this country out of default, protected the President of the United States, helped investigate the Oklahoma City bombing, made it possible for millions of Americans to file their taxes by telephone, and seized tons and tons and tons of dangerous drugs at our borders. I can tell you from first-hand knowledge and with absolute certainty that the quality of the work and the dedication of the personnel rivals that in any first-rate private sector firm.
My third point is that the federal government -- like the business world -- is now deeply involved in reinvention to make government operate more efficiently and effectively, and to be more customer sensitive.
The federal workforce is the smallest in a generation, and government is in the process of turning from the kinds of institutions many of us have pictured over the years, to agencies bound and determined to do better and, in fact, doing better.
These are the messages we need to carry to the skeptics and the cynics and the people who no longer have confidence in the role of government and public service. We must re-establish respect for the institution of government and for those who serve in government, and for that to happen, the business and professional leadership of this country can and must play a critical role as opinion leaders in our society.
The debate itself on the function and scope of government, and how to improve government, must go on, but it must be conducted in the context of support and respect for government and those in public service, not in an atmosphere of derogation.
If we have your participation, we will honor the idea of public service and serve our country in a far greater way and on a far larger scale than you have honored me this evening.
Thank you, and good night.