"Who is Government" | Reviewed by Bill Schwab

Last year, Michael Lewis assembled a talented team of six writers. He challenged them to each seek out an unknown federal government worker, write an article about that person's work, and its importance. The six essays are a compelling argument against ideologues who disdain the federal government and are committed to disassembling it.

"Who is Government?" could not be timelier, given the current attacks and vilification of federal agencies and employees. Contrary to the stereotype of the federal government being a bloated bureaucracy, the federal workforce remains the same size as it was in the 1960s.

There are 2.4 million people in federal positions, with 70% of them working in defense and national security agencies. Doubtless, some workers are incompetent and lazy, and some agencies need reform, but the essays dwell on the remarkable quiet employees who represent public service at its best.

The essay Lewis wrote, "Canary," focuses on a completely little-known mine safety employee, whose 40-year career has transformed mine safety in the United States. Christopher Marks has spent most of his career as an engineer for the Department of Labor, developing methods to reduce mine roof collapses. He started to think about how to avoid mine collapses in the 1980s and 1990s. The improvements he implemented resulted in 2016 being the first year in United States history that no miners were killed by the failure of a mine roof.

  "The Searchers," by Dave Eggers, focuses on Nancy Grace Roman and her career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Roman was the first woman at NASA, where, today, 31% of its employees are women. Known as the "Mother of the Hubble," she preferred to remain anonymous and not be singled out for her achievement. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with a field of vision 100 times greater than the Hubble, will be launched into space in a few years.

Casey Cep’s essay, "The Sentinel," is one of the more poignant accounts. It portrays Ronald Walters, who currently leads the National Cemetery Administration. This federal agency arranges a burial place for any veteran whose family requests a grave in a National Cemetery.

"Thanks to Walter's efforts, 94% of U.S. veterans live no further than 75 miles from a veteran cemetery." The National Cemetery Administration employs 2300 people who "…bury more than 140,000 veterans and their family members each year while taking care of the graves of more than 4 million veterans."

Page after page, the essays present reasons why we have government. It is mainly because no one else is willing to do these jobs. There is no profit motive in much government work. Private businesses are not prepared to invest decades in addressing many of the complex challenges that the government tackles. As one of the essayists put it, "No billionaires will fund work like this because there is no money in it.... If [ government was] not doing it, it would not be done."

"What is Government?" upbraids the cynical misrepresentation of the federal government that has been amplified in recent years. It demonstrates that far from being totally corrupted by waste, fraud, and laziness, the federal government is filled with dedicated employees, working with tight restraints, most of whom could be working somewhere else for more pay. The book affirms that the government's work is useful and that no one else is likely to do it.

I commend this book for being a rebuttal to the many citizens and elected leaders who maintain that federal civil servants are up to no good. Each essay takes about 20 minutes to read, and is satisfying and supportive of our neighbors who are dedicated federal workers.

Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is the publisher of this 243-page book, which includes photographs of the featured employees.

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of several nonfiction books, including "Moneyball" and "Liar's Poker." He is a financial journalist whose essays have appeared in Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, and many other publications.

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