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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.