[fdewrewrewf]

A culture shift, yes.

Back to the idea that public servants are indeed servants to the public, and their entire purpose is to spend the public's money in a way that benefits the public.

[mellavora]

I've heard horror stories on HN which would justify your cynicism, and agree that corruption is a problem. See also issues with police and accountability.

You might be surprised, however, at what percentage of federal bureaocracy does see themselves as civil servants.

The culture shift can be done. And it is well worth it, for everyone's sake. Corruption represents a Nash equilibrium, once rooted it is very hard to remove.

That's why I'm defending government workers here. We want good, effective government. This requires good, effective people to carry out the work. Making this respectable and letting those people do their job is pretty key to getting that good government.

The principles aren't so different from managing a team of software engineers. Would you enjoy working (in software) in a company where sales and marketing was always blaming the engineers, and HR was always calling the engineers lazy, and management was constantly shifting priorities while blaming engineers for not hitting targets, etc...

So why create the same environment for government workers? Why not treat them with the same professional respect you'd expect/hope for in your job?

And why not call out the politician as the a*hat when he insults the people trying to get the job done?