Top Bureaucrats Held to Be Conservative : Poll Finds Most Prefer to Work Under Republican Presidents

Senior federal bureaucrats, contrary to conventional wisdom, are quite conservative, preferring Republican presidents to Democrats by a large margin, according to a survey of government officials released Thursday.

By 59% to 42%, more than 3,000 federal officials who responded to a survey sponsored by Government Executive magazine said they believed that the executive branch functions more effectively under a Republican President than under a Democrat.

65% Voted for Reagan

Of the bureaucrats polled, 65% said they had voted for President Reagan over Jimmy Carter in 1980 and 60% voted for Reagan over Walter F. Mondale in 1984. The figures are surprising in light of Reagan’s attacks on bureaucrats and his calls for smaller, less intrusive government, said the survey’s directors, magazine Editor Timothy B. Clark and Managing Editor Marjorie Wachtel.

“These people are conservative” and generally supportive of the Reagan Administration’s goals, Clark said Thursday. But, as the Administration nears its close, morale among top career government officials is low and falling, the survey found, because of poor pay, a “brain drain” of talented managers and a decade of “bureaucrat-bashing” by Congress, the White House and the news media.

Two-thirds of the officials said they would happily take early retirement if it were offered, Clark said.

Although they approve of much of the Reagan agenda, the bureaucrats--even many in the Pentagon--think that Reagan’s $2-trillion military buildup has resulted in waste.

Among non-Pentagon government officials, 73% believe the buildup led to “a lot” of waste; 52% of Pentagon civilians and even 33% of military officers share that opinion.

Government Executive, a 50,000-circulation magazine aimed at top federal, state and local officials, mailed the survey to all of its subscribers in January. Responses were voluntary, so the sample is not scientific, the magazine noted.

Of the 3,200 federal government respondents, 44% were civilians in the Defense Department, 14% were uniformed military officers and 42% were managers in other government agencies. The heavy Pentagon representation skews the results somewhat to the right, the survey’s authors said.

For example, if military officials are taken out of the sample, the Reagan-Mondale vote breakdown is 54% to 35%, compared to 60% to 30% with all of the uniformed and civilian Pentagon workers included.

The respondents were generally career bureaucrats serving in the higher reaches of government agencies, with 61% having been in government for 20 years or more and 58% being over the age of 45. Their average pay was about $52,000 a year.

Higher Military Morale

Morale is much higher in the military than in civilian government agencies and has risen since Reagan assumed office, the survey found. Two-thirds of the military officers said that morale in the armed forces has improved since 1981, and 67% said that they would recommend military service to young people.

Bureaucrats, not surprisingly, were unhappy with their pay levels, with 70% saying the compensation system is unfair.

If things are so bad, why do so many government officials remain? Three-fourths said that they found their jobs either “exciting” (26%) or “satisfying” (50%). Others cited the call of public service.