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Stemming the Slide of Public Trust: Enabling Ethical Behavior in Government
Barely month into 2010, New York Governor David Patterson vetoed ethics reform legislation passed by the state legislature. In a statement explaining his veto, the Governor claimed that the law “… does not go far enough in addressing the corrosive effects of outside influence and internal decay that have caused the people of New York to lose faith and trust in their government.” Four weeks later, the governor was charged with violating state ethics laws when he obtained free World Series tickets and subsequently lied under oath about his intentions to pay for the tickets. Political pundits and opponents flooded the airwaves with opinions and outrage about the evolving scandal. Millions of New Yorkers simply muttered the too-common belief that undermines every public official and government employee in the country: “That’s how it is in government.”
Distrust in government is as American as innovation and independence but public trust in government at all levels now hovers at record lows. Blame is tossed across the economic, business and government landscape, landing on factors as diverse as the financial collapse, talk radio and government bailouts. More important than blame is the outfall on millions of government employees under daily scrutiny by the public for failures of performance, reliability and integrity.
