Consider: get a reading from the front.
Why do some call the Bucy the “4th branch of government”?
The Last Word: #14 for tomorrow
THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
Unit 4b
AP Government
and Politics
What is a “bureaucracy”?
• We know the second half of
the word, “cracy” means “to
rule”.
• And “bureau” is a French word for
“desk”…
• So together, the word bureaucracy literally means “to rule from
a desk”.
•The idea is that government workers, who
often work at desks, are essentially “ruling
us”…
–Why might this be controversial?
What is a “bureaucracy”?
A large, complex group organized according to a
certain structure
The Federal
“B’ucy”
 Colloquially:
 the
“government”.
 Divided into 3
basic parts
 Executive
(Cabinet)
departments
 Independent
Executive
Agencies
 The Executive
Office of the
President
National
Security
Council
The Executive
Branch
Executive
Office of ("The President")
the
President
Peace
Corps
FEC
SSA
White
House
Office
Council of
Economic
Advisors
- The "Right Arm" of
the President
- Several agencies
staffed by the
President's closest
advisors
Executive
Deapartments
"The Cabinet"
- 15 Departments
headed by a
Secretary
- Do most of the work
of the Executive
branch
- Broken down into
subunits
Justice
CIA
NASA
Independent Agencies
- Number in the 100's
- Deal with specific areas/
activities outside the scope
of the Cabinet depts.
- Report directly to the
President
Other Key
Executive
Agencies
Defense
EPA
State
HS

Some Bureaucratic Myths and
Americans dislike
realities
bureaucrats.
 Americans are generally satisfied
with bureaucrats, though they
may dislike agencies or the
“bucy” as a whole (see:
Congress)
 Bureaucracies are growing
bigger each year.
 Not the federal bureaucracy.
 Most federal bureaucrats
work in Washington, D.C.
 Only about 12 percent do.
 Bureaucracies are ineffective,
inefficient, and always mired
in red tape.
 Research suggests not much
more so than private businesses.
How do we feel about
government/bureaucracy?
 Q: How many
government bureaucrats
does it take to screw in a
light bulb?
 A: Two. One to assure
everyone that everything
possible is being done while
the other screws the bulb
into the water faucet.
 Q: How many
government workers does
it take to screw in a light
bulb?
 A: Two. One to screw it in
and one to screw it up.
Quotes on Bureaucracy
 There’s a new game that's sweeping the country. It's
called "Bureaucracy" Everybody stands in a circle. The
first person to do anything loses.
 “The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is
its inefficiency.”
 “In any bureaucracy, paper work increases as you
spend more and more time reporting on the less and
less you are doing”
 “Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible
impossible”
The “Rules” of Bureaucracy











Preserve thyself.
It is easier to fix the blame than to fix the problem.
A penny saved is an oversight.
Information deteriorates upward.
The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time; the last 10% takes
the other 90%.
Experience is what you get just after you need it.
For any given large, complex, hard-to-understand, expensive
problem, there exists at least one short, simple, easy, cheap wrong
answer.
Anything that can be changed will be, until time runs out.
To err is human; to shrug is civil service.
There’s never enough time to do it right, but there’s always enough
time to do it over.
Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.
 O’Toole’s Corollary – Murphy was an optimist.
FIGURE 8.1: How many employees work in
the federal executive branch?
8.1
Bureaucratic Growth
Are these characterizations
fair?
 http://www.learner.org/courses/democracyin
america/dia_8/dia_8_video.html
Trimming the fat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSX_
GwGP4s