How can the Congressional Supercommittee fix the Nation?

By: Chris Anderson

The numbers are staggering: a $1.3 trillion deficit. A $15 trillion national debt. Nine percent unemployment. Regardless of your political persuasion, these figures represent an existential crisis for the nation. The congressional supercommittee is the political institution tasked with solving these problems.

One proposal they are likely to consider involves trimming the federal workforce. Reducing federal workers is a likely outcome for the supercommittee regardless of whether they meet their deadlines or not, as committee “success” is likely to consider reducing the size of the federal workforce and committee “failure” will lead to immediate cuts in defense personnel. Thus, it appears that either way, the congressional supercommittee’s work will put the federal workforce on the chopping block.

Of course, it’s not just the supercommittee at work here. The federal workforce is aging, and the combined effects of budget austerity, buyouts, and early retirements pose will pose a challenge in the future.

So, what will this mean for those workers who choose not to take the buyouts and early retirement? How will the federal workforce need to transform during a time of budget austerity?

If anything, the work done by federal employees is getting more complex, not less (think financial regulation, complex international threats, ongoing health reforms). But, as I’ve indicated, there will be fewer federal workers to oversee these initiatives. Thus, each federal worker will need to increase productivity across multiple job domains.

As paradoxical as it may seem, federal workers need an investment in their human capital as part of the coming age of austerity. In other words, federal workers will need an ongoing investment in training, development, and certification programs to allow them to continue to provide the quality of service the public demands.