ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on budget growth and public workforce trends in the federal government. It describes the ideals of reform movements that emerged in the latter 1800s. The chapter explores challenges and opportunities for public administration over more recent decades. It also focuses on the growth of the federal government from 1960 to 1976 and efforts to transform America and its public workforce from segregated exclusion to ideals of inclusion. Government reforms in the late 1800s and early years of the twentieth century focused nationally and locally on interconnected social, economic, and political issues. Muckrakers raised public awareness about these issues and took on corporate monopolies and crooked political machines. Corruption of constitutional democracy, capitalist market failures, and fragile social institutions were impacting growing numbers of victims. In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act had become law. Creation of other independent commissions to regulate economic affairs followed, resulting in fragmentation into specialized turfs.
