Controlling The Bureaucracy  Presidential Influences  Powers:  Appointment of top-level bureaucrats  Power to fire top-level bureaucrats  Power to propose reorganization of exec branch  Proposes agency budgets

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Presidential Influences  Powers (cont.):  Senior Executive Service personnel:  7000 senior career officials can be appointed without Senate consent  Greater leeway in transferring, firing, promoting, rewarding – idea to make agencies more accountable to POTUS

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Presidential Influences  Checks:  Senate confirmation needed for top personnel  Vast majority of bureaucrats cannot be fired by POTUS  Reorganization must go through Congress  Agency budgets must go through Congress  SES little impact on accountability

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Congressional Influences  Powers:  Appropriations of agency budgets  Standing committee oversight, investigations, and hearings  GAO (Gov’t. Accountability Office, formerly General Accounting Office), acts as congressional watchdog to ensure agencies spend money in accordance with Congressional law

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Congressional Influences  Powers:  Reorganization  Appointment confirmation  Sunset laws: give agencies a limited life, require that they justify their existence  Checks on Congressional influence:  Congress may not really want to clamp down on bureaucracy…

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Congressional Influences  Checks on Congressional influence:  Members profit politically from the existence of federal programs within their states & districts (ex: reluctance to close military bases)  Easier for Congress to pass broadly worded legislation, let bureaucratic experts fill in details

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Interest Group Influences  Lobbying  “Revolving Door:” many agencies staffed by people who move back and forth between public and private sectors – concern that bureaucrats may not carefully regulate industries that might be their next employers  Client groups: interest groups said to be “clients” of agencies because relationship is so close (i.e. dairy groups and Agriculture Dept.)

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Interest Group Influences (cont.)  Iron Triangles (subgovernments): Interest group, congressional committee, related bureaucratic agency  Issue Networks/Policy Networks: informal groups of people with common interests within public and private sectors  Courts  Use of injunctions, writs of mandamus

Controlling The Bureaucracy  Media  Scrutiny of agency behavior (ex: investigations of whether FBI, CIA heeded warning signs pre-9/11)  Use of “whistle-blowers” within bureaucracy – protected by federal legislation  Privatization  Means of making bureaucracy more efficient (ex: concessions within national parks)

The Bureaucracy & Public Opinion  General public attitude is negative (too much red tape, waste, inefficiency, underwork & overpay)  Specific public attitude is more favorable – individuals’ personal dealings with bureaucracies tend to be positive  Some believe that bureaucrats are too lazy and ineffective, yet also too powerful  Bureaucrats often used as scapegoats by politicians when government goes wrong – impacts public opinion

Criticisms of the Bureaucracy  Excessive red tape  Agency conflicts (Agriculture Dept. issues subsidies to tobacco farmers while Surgeon General warns public not to smoke)  Agency duplication (ex: drug enforcement)  Excessive waste  Lack of good incentive system to encourage bureaucratic efficiency and productivity

Criticisms of the Bureaucracy (cont.)  Excessive growth: though # of federal employees fairly constant for the last 50 years and some agencies have been dismantled (ICC) or reduced in scope (NEA) by Congress (and some Republicans want to dismantle Education & Energy Departments),  Due to use of federal grants to shift work to states, about 5,000,000 jobs were created on state & local level that do federal work  8-10 million private jobs depend on federal government spending

Criticisms of the Bureaucracy (cont.)  “Permanent government,” unresponsive to public (due to difficulties of firing bureaucrats)  Status quo bias – disincentive to “rock the boat” with new initiatives – why bother? “In the game of ‘Bureaucracy,’ there is only one rule: the first to move loses”

Defending the Bureaucracy  Correcting excessive red tape requires more regulations (more red tape!)  Red tape used to ensure fairness & impartiality  Reduction of agency conflicts & duplication would require Congress to prioritize – difficult and disincentivized by priorities of constituents supporting programs within states/districts  Waste reduction would require more regulations

Defending the Bureaucracy  Reducing excessive growth would require Congress to set priorities – politically difficult  Some agencies have shrunk (Postal Service, Defense Department) or been eliminated (ICC)  Public is inconsistent: complains about government growth but demands govt. action  Compared to other nations, U.S. bureaucracy is fairly efficient

“Laws” of Bureaucratic Procedure  Boren’s Laws: When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate. When in charge, ponder  Smith’s Principle: Never do anything for the first time  Peter Principle: In any hierarchy, each employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence (and tasks expand to fill time allocated to them)  Parkinson’s Second Law: Expenditures rise to meet income