Thats kind of what Newt is saying but he used partisan buzzwords and tripped the bull**** meters. He is saying that government service and structures need a change in mindset, governments current purpose seems to be to create more work for itself, from congress and the executive branch on down. That needs to change and it cannot be done with the same people in place that seem to keep moving the government engine forward onto bigger and bigger bureaucracy.
Newt overthought this and worded it terribly. But if we are going to change the philosophy of government and exact real change, people need to change their thinking or hit the road. Im not even talking liberal and conservative here but the nature and scope of government.
well, i will let newt speak for himself and what he says cannot be explained away
he appears to want to fire career civil servants who are not of his own political inclination
a stupid, stupid suggestion
what you have offered in an effort to explain away newt's foolish remarks actually exists
when the executive is elected into office, the president appoints the staff who will head the various agencies of government
that which was emphasized in a previous administration may now be de-emphasized in favor of another direction in which those appointees have pointed for their subordinates to follow as they perform the government's works
while they cannot direct the career civil service employees to violate any laws, rules or regulations they can and do direct them to focus their energies in a particular direction as decided by the executive office
these political appointees can also shape government direction by allocating their budgets such that the most funding flows in the direction of initiatives favored by the president and his advisors
those career rank and file employees who received their jobs based on merit rather than political affiliation are the ones who must heed the directives they are given by the political appointees and carry out the government's work
these career employees must execute the requirements imposed upon them by their supervisors even if doing so is in contradiction with their own political views
as a personal example, when i was hired into the federal service i was a capital "L" Libertarian, opposed to government intervention which was not in keeping with the invisible hand that libertarians are so fond of. and one of my first jobs was to decide which small businesses would receive government/taxpayer provided money to start or expand their businesses
my personal political views (since revised) had to subordinated to the task i was assigned to perform. clearly, i could not refuse to make government loans to all small business applicants, while my personal political persuasion would have dictated such inaction
and coming out of a long career spent in government and as a k street lobbyist, newt knows these things. this is yet another dog whistle he directs at those who are not so informed