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CHAPTER 11 FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
The group of employees who are responsible for implementing government policy
Also known as the Administrative State because their primary responsibility is putting
government policies into practice on a daily basis
What Is the Federal Bureaucracy?
The bureaucracy that comprises the government’s executive branch
is made up of millions of permanent employees called civil servants
and thousands of short- term workers who are political appointees
of the president.
Civil servants are employees of the federal government who are hired on the
basis of their qualifications
Any government employee who is selected by an elected official is known as
a political appointee
Americans regularly encounter the work of the bureaucracy as part of their everyday
lives.
A federal employees who directly provides services to the public is known as a
street-level bureaucrat
What do bureaucrats do?
Implement policies established by Congress or the president
Sometimes, the laws are very specific and bureaucrats have
very little discretion.
More commonly, laws provide general guidelines for achieving
goals. This gives bureaucrats the chance to develop specific
programs and policies. (Although some presidential and congressional decisions
are specific, many leave room for interpretation by bureaucrats. This explains
why bureaucracies can have significant influence on policy.)
Generally, federal bureaucrats
regulate individual and corporate behavior
buy products (and services) ranging from erasers to airplanes,
engage in inherently political activities.
MAKING LAWS IS NOT a task of federal bureaucrats. BUT bureaucrats DO
MAKE REGULATIONS
Regulations
Government rules that give government control over individuals
and corporations by restricting behaviors
Developed via the notice and comment procedure
Before any new regulation can take effect, it must first:
be published in the Federal Register to notify the public
Rule-making is very political. Bureaucrats listen to congressional pressure
because Congress can overturn statutes that give bureaucrats power and
because Congress controls their budgets.
Federal regulations affect every aspect of everyday life: from
the gas mileage of cars sold in the United States to what doctors
can charge senior citizens for particular procedures.
Often, regulations cause trade-off s between incompatible goals.
FDA and experimental treatment
Procurement
Bureaucrats are in charge of government purchases.
President Obama has proposed ending “cost- plus” and
“no- bid” contracts to reduce waste.
Bureaucrats must make several decisions regarding the criteria
of what they will buy.
Providing services
Street- level bureaucrats provide government services to regular Americans.
1. Job training
2. Disaster assistance
3. Park services
Research and development
Government scientists do research covering a wide variety
of areas.
Managing and directing
Supervising—Department of Defense uses civilian contractors to complete a
wide variety of services in Iraq, for example
Bureaucratic expertise and its consequences
Bureaucrats are experts, in general; more so than members of Congress or the
president.
Critics of bureaucracies point to too much
Red tape
Standard operating procedures
Expertise
It is hard for elected officials to evaluate bureaucrats.
Problem of control
Regulatory capture: bureaucrats favoring interests of groups they are supposed
to be regulating
Neutral competence as an antidote to control problems
However, most bureaucracies do not follow the vision of neutral competence.
A paradox of the federal bureaucracy is that the same organization that does many important
things can also be inefficient and wasteful.
Any unnecessarily complex set of procedures in the bureaucracy is called red tape
History of the American Bureaucracy
There is no inherent logic in the structure of the bureaucracy as it developed in a piecemeal
fashion in three major periods.
i.
Late 1890s– early 1900s
ii.
1930s
iii.
1960s
Demands from citizens and the desire of elected officials to provide enhanced government
services based on societal needs best describes why tremendous growth of the bureaucracy
occurred during certain times throughout American history?
The beginning of America’s bureaucracy
Even as late as the 1820s, there were only three executive departments.
Treasury
War
State
There was also a Postmaster General at this time
Narrow range of tasks performed by the early federal bureaucracy included
Delivery of mail
Taxes on imports and exports
Providing for national defense
Taxes on exports
Small size of the federal government was indicative of Americans’ distrust of
government after years of British rule and Americans disliked having government
officials who were not elected
The spoils system was first used on a large scale to reward campaign supporters
not long after the nation’s Founding (1820s)
President Jackson used the spoils system, in which people who had worked in
Jackson’s campaign were given government jobs as rewards.
Useful for the party organization
From the early 1800s until the Civil War, growth in the size of government occurred
largely because of the increased size of the United States
Building a new American state: The progressive era
Government’s regulatory power increased from 1890 to 1920.
Sherman Anti- trust Act
Pure Food and Drug Act
1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act creates the federal civil service, under which
the merit system becomes the basis for the hiring and promotion of bureaucrats
Creates a bureaucracy built on expertise
Helps to end the spoils system
The New Deal 1930s
The New Deal programs are those developed and implemented during Franklin
Roosevelt’s first presidential term in the 1930s.
Social Security
The New Deal reforms included a large transfer of power to bureaucrats and the
president.
The New Deal expanded the government’s role in the economy.
The principal bureaucratic change that occurred during the New Deal was
that the range of policy areas in which the government intervened expanded.
Bureaucracy moved from broad-based regulations to delivering a wide range of benefits
and services directly to individuals
Debates over these expansions have animated partisan politics ever since.
The Great Society 1960s
The Great Society was another expansion of the size, capacity, and behavior of the
government bureaucracy that took place during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.
Congress funded bilingual education.
Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act
Medicare and Medicaid
Reagan Revolution 1980s
The Reagan Revolution involved a significant devolution of federal authority back to
state and local governments. YET, The Reagan Revolution’s impact on the bureaucracy
was characterized by the elimination of few programs and a federal budget that steadily
increased
Under George W. Bush the federal government continued to grow, rather than contract.
No Child Left Behind (Bush)
Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (Bush)
THE MODERN FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
Structure of the federal government (Figure 11.2) p335
The federal government serves an enormous range of functions.
Executive office of the president (The President’s Staff)
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (Creates the annual budget proposal from the
president to Congress) The Office of Management and Budget is also primarily
responsible for helping the president monitor federal budget expenditures and proposals
Below the EOP are the 15 cabinet level departments
Each cabinet- level department is made up of many smaller organizations.
See Figure 11.3 (Department of Agriculture)
The largest cabinet departments are typically involved in matters related to which policy
security and defense
Below the executive departments are independent agencies like the Federal Reserve
Congress may create an independent agency because presidents have less control over
them than executive agencies.
SIZE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (Table 11.1) p338
While the federal government employs millions, the number of people serving in each executive
department and independent agency varies widely. The Department of Defense, for example,
has over 600,000 employees, while the Department of Education has 4,000.
One reason has to do with the mission and scope of the departments.
Another has to do with budget maximizers— bureaucrats who work to improve the
funding for their agency regardless of whether that spending is useful.
Social Security is the government program the public is LEAST in favor of cutting?
HUMAN FACE OF THE BUREAUCRACY
Many bureaucrats serve for the job security, salary, and benefits.
A main consequence of the civil service regulations is
significant job security for civil servants
But, over one-third say that their main incentive in seeking a bureaucratic position is an
interest in public service.
Civil Service Regulations
Education improves pay.
The civil service system also has a set of tests to determine who is hired for
lower- level positions.
Higher- level jobs are awarded to those who have good qualifications,
experience, and education; seniority helps determine who gets promoted.
Limits on salaries and promotions in the civil service make it difficult to reward
the best employees
After three years of satisfactory job performance, a civil servant cannot be fi red
without cause.
So it is difficult for elected officials to hire and fire employees for political
purposes.
Many cumbersome regulations— remember that the reason for their existence is
to take politics out of the hiring process.
Even so, there are examples of political beliefs being used as hiring criteria in
President George W. Bush’s Justice Department, for example.
Limits on political activity
The Hatch Act prohibits federal workers from engaging in organized political
activities.
Senior White House staffers are exempt from these restrictions,
though they are prevented from using government resources for
political purposes.
Political Appointees and the Senior Executive Service (SES)
The president appoints about 7,000 political appointees who are not traditional civil
servants to the federal bureaucracy.
The ability to make political appointments helps the president exercise some measure of
control over the bureaucracy.
Any government employee who is selected by an elected official is known as
a political appointee
In many agencies, top officials belong to the SES and are not subject to civil service
high-level civil servants who are exempt from civil service restrictions
CONTROLLING THE BUREAUCRACY
Elected officials are challenged in maintaining control over the bureaucracy due to
the officials’ lack of expertise relative to the bureaucrats
Principal- agent game: Lawmakers must determine how to get the benefits of
bureaucratic expertise without just giving bureaucrats complete control over their own
behavior
One strategy is to give direct orders.
Of course, this limits their bureaucratic expertise.
Still, elected officials need to reduce bureaucratic drift while being able to benefit from
bureaucratic expertise
(Bureaucratic drift is a situation which bureaucrats implement policies that
are more consistent with their preferences than those of elected officials)
Two strategies (these strategies merely mitigate, and do not eliminate, the problem of
control.)
Agency organization
In addition to setting policy goals, lawmakers can control bureaucratic
decision making by choosing where the agency is located within the
government structure, thus also controlling who runs the agency.
Lawmakers can also limit who runs the agency. Federal Communications
Commission’s five commissioners as an example
Monitoring (Oversight)
Oversight from Congress
Advance warning
Require bureaucrats to disclose their proposed actions before
they take effect
Investigations
Police patrol oversight: constant monitoring
Fire alarm oversight: when Congress responds to complaints
about a bureaucratic agency
Correcting violations
Legislation can correct problems, as can executive orders.
Although elected officials have a variety of strategies for preventing
bureaucratic drift, a key limitation is that most require the president and
Congress to agree on their use
Correcting problems is most challenging when Congress and the
president disagree about how well the bureaucracy is handling
a particular issue.
This is when agencies often have the most discretion.
A potential problem with legislation that does not give bureaucrats a sufficient
amount of discretion in implementing policy is that it makes it difficult for bureaucrats
to respond to developments not foreseen in the legislation.