Just in case, I mean the competence to perform in a government position, not the competence to acquire it.
Edit: Sorry that was a bad phrasing on my part. I realise that you don’t know who is the mythical number one 🙂 I am curious however, who is notable to you as a very competent person in the government.
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I’d say it’s likely someone we’ve never heard of. There are bureaucrats who have been in their positions for years and have all the experience and expertise in the world. There’s much more to the government than just those in elected positions.
The most competent people are a whole bunch of legislative aids whose names aren’t known to the general public. But among folks who might be known to others, Ron Klain (former chief of staff) would be among them. For sheer political grit, Nancy Pelosi would have to be ranked pretty highly.
I sincerely don’t know how we can answer this question.
There are literally millions of people working for the US government right now, quietly doing all the things that the government does that make our lives silently better–from making sure airplanes don’t collide while landing to figuring out the source of e-Coli contamination in the food supply, who we never hear about.
And sadly most of what we hear is either the low-level outrage over politics (and by extension, politicians or those who owe their jobs to political assignment rather than who are the bureaucrats who work for the government). That is, most of what we hear on the news are places where the government (federal, state, local) utterly fail to do their jobs well, rather than the millions of times where they just do the work, and get it done with quiet competence.
The best politicians are probably the ones we never hear about.
Not sure. Competence doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with what they do, just that they are good at getting their own agenda done. I’m sure there are a lot of competent people I would never vote for.
Among those that are most well known, I don’t care what your thoughts on her policies are, Nancy Pelosi will be remembered as one of the most effective Speakers/caucus leaders of all time.
Mitch McConnell. I don’t *like* the man, but he’s been remarkably effective in controlling the Senate and helping to pack the Supreme Court with regressive judges.
I like Katie Porter.
My buddy is a vet with the USDA and he’s very competent, so I nominate him.
Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense
Largely because I haven’t heard too many bad things said about him.
Probably someone in other federal departments or independent agencies.
Check out the [Sammie Awards!](https://servicetoamericamedals.org/#&panel1-1) They are given to exceptional government employees and are known as [“the Oscars of public service”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Heyman_Service_to_America_Medals)
Wrong question.
Ask them to name a Republican who does a good job.
They can’t.
EDIT: Every downvote is someone agreeing with me. 🙂
The most competent people in government are those who the public does not know, typically working over multiple administrations, and usually make far less and work way harder than the average politician. That, or top level cabinet members like Antony Blinken
Nancy Pelosi was a Boss.
We live in such a shitty era of media and politics, that everybody thinks everybody sucks, but your guys suck worse than mine. In that environment, the loudest voices are always the most negative ones. So everybody said they hated Nancy Pelosi.
Republicans thought she was a child-murdering communist, while progressives thought she was so conservative she might as well have been a Republican.
But she was easily one of the most effective and progressive House Speakers in US History. Her dad had been mayor of Baltimore when she was a kid, and she grew up with the old machine politics of his era. But she made her career in hippy-dippy San Fransisco, and rose through the ranks as a leader of the reformist progressive wing of the Party. She was able to combine these two histories to lead a crazy body through crazier times, herding the Democratic cats and passing all of the biggest social reforms of the past quarter-century.
I love that she’s still in Congress, too. Just because she isn’t in charge doesn’t mean she can’t still serve. For all the hate she gets, she was quietly effective and dedicated.
Are you talking about 1.8M civilian non postal employees, the 517k postal employees, the 1.3M Active duty military personnel or just the 537 elected officials? This would change the answer *drastically*.
None.
I’m a big fan of the NOAA Hurricane Hunters, who fly into the eyes of hurricanes because it’s fucking awesome.
I’m also a fan of astronauts, who are, in fact, government employees.
Me, a bureaucrat, who has received an outstanding on my performance review that last 5 years.
The postal guy always delivers my mail and hasn’t broken anything in the packages so I guess him.
One of my coworkers has been in the service for well over 35 years but he’s not a politician. He may have his political beliefs that differ from my own and everyone else’s, but he sets those beliefs aside to get the job done, and done well.
AOC and SecDef
It’s hard to say anyone. I’ll answer for which people in recent history have done a good job at something in government even if I don’t agree with everything they have done.
Jim Bridenstine (NASA director under Trump) – Led well to push for Artemis mission. Got the Republicans and Democrats to agree on a more fruitful endeavor to go towards
DeSantis – Took a much more measured approach to Covid. Still supported get vaccinated (although I think he should have been a bigger proponent), while avoiding massive and unnecessary shutdowns for extended periods of time. One of our pivotal moments of the century and acted much better than the shutdown heavy states.
Biden – Withstood enormous political pressure to stay in Afghanistan. Pulled out even though it was embarrassing. Great call, we needed to get out of there.
Ro Khanna – Withstood the stupid virtue signaling nonsense of Democrats to say that Dianne Feinstein needs to resign.
Trump – Foreign policy: Changed our national outlook away from terrorism and towards nation-state competition, put China on blast for being a bad actor more so than any other president, supported the Hong Kongers when they were protesting, slapped Assad (bombed some planes) when he was gassing civilians, pushed along the pivot to Asia, helped get the QUAD restarted, embarrassed the Europeans for spending too little on defense, initiated the pullout from Afghanistan, got Kim-Jung Un to meet up with the South Korean president, Got a bunch of Arab countries to sign the Abraham accords (probably was snubbed for a nobel peace prize for this one), didn’t get the US into a nonsensical war (that shouldn’t be a big thing but for us it is)
​
For some team wins I will give it to:
California state government – EV adoption policy, free school lunches
LA city government – Green New Deal
I don’t know as much about other states because I live in LA and don’t pay attention to every stroke of the pen in places that I don’t live.
Probably the most competent people in government are in a job we don’t even think about:
The schedulers.
A scheduler plays high stakes Tetris, in that part of the game where blocks are just flying down, all day long, on behalf of a high profile official.
It’s a constant fielding of requests, prioritizing, moving things, and re-moving things. All without causing offense to stakeholders or annoying your boss.
That job is hard as hell, and it requires problem solving, tact, and the ability to think on your feet.
I’ve never met a scheduler who wasn’t incredibly competent.