BUREAUCRACY
Slide Two
>> Welcome to America and Arizona government for elementary teachers. This is presentation
10, the bureaucracy. You know, understanding the bureaucracy is crucial to understand the
overall functioning of our government. Most of the people in government serve in the
bureaucracy and it's in the bureaucracy where rules are made and government actually does
things. I'm a bureaucrat. As a teacher, I work for the Maricopa County Community College
District. You are hoping--by taking this class, I'm assuming that you're hoping to become a
bureaucrat yourself when you get a teaching job. So bureaucrats are all around us and are an
important part of government. This lecture will examine what the bureaucracy is and different
kinds there are in the American system and some of its historical development. The lecture will
then look at who controls the bureaucracy and how decisions are made.
Slide Three
>> This lecture will cover concepts that are part of the AEPA objective 11, understand the
structure organization and operation of the federal government. It will also explore Arizona
Social Study Standards strand three concept three, the functions of Government. As usual, I
encourage you to review the social studies standards articulated by grade level document for
strand three, Civics and Government, and look at the objectives listed under concept three. As we
go through the concepts and once we're finished, go back, review those objectives, and make
sure that you understand them fully.
Slide Four
>> We begin by asking what is a bureaucracy. The word itself evokes an old-fashioned bureau
dresser, which has lots of little compartments and drawers, and as you're filing, you can put
different things in different drawers. That image of an efficient, organized filing system is what
bureaucracy, which is the rule by people who stick things in compartments. So bureaucracies are
the unelected officials in the executive branch. The people whose job it is to actually do
whatever the legislature has written into law and the executive has provided the money and
ordered them to do. Typically, the legislature will provide overall guidelines in the law, then the
details of the laws, the actual rules, and administrative guidelines are determined by the
bureaucracy, so they have a tremendous policymaking, as well as, policy execution role. Now,
Max Weber was a German political philosopher who spent a lot of time thinking about the state
and the relationship between the state and those that are governed. And, his utopian vision of the
perfect state was a state that was run by a bureaucracy, and this bureaucracy would be a
meritocracy, meaning people who were competent and qualified would run the government and
administer the government. There would be no kings, no aristocrats who were only there because
of their birth. There would be no politicians who are only there because of their popularity. And,
as a result, you would have a government that is run rationally, not in the self-interest of the
people who are in the government or in accordance with a whim of the mob, the elected, the
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populous, or the whim of some politician or aristocrat. Now, that vision of an efficient
bureaucracy being the ideal government is clearly a utopia. We've never come anywhere close to
that, but that presents an ideal to which a bureaucracy should work towards, but more
importantly that the public seems to expect from its agencies.
Slide Five
>> The problem with that vision is that bureaucracies are rarely, if ever, efficient. If anything,
they end up costing a lot more money because you have bureaucrats who draw a salary which are
net drain on whatever policy is being done, all of the rules that the bureaucrats come up with
have to be followed. That typically slows things down, creates what's called red tape, which are
barriers that have to be overcome before an action can take place. And so many people criticize
the bureaucracy as a tremendous waste. In fact, in a lot of the debates over education funding,
typically it is the administrators, the bureaucracy of education that bear the brunt of criticism.
Most people will say, well, we need to increase future salary but yet they're going to decrease
overall educational funding. And the defense for that kind of legislative action is always, well,
the bureaucracy can simply trim the waste that is in that bureaucracy. So there's a lot of criticism
for the lack of efficiency for bureaucracy. One point I want to make in this presentation is that
bureaucracies have never been economically efficient, that what that means to be economically
efficient is to engage in an action or achieve an outcome in the--with the lowest possible cost in
the shortest amount of time. That kind of efficiency which we might value highly is rarely, if
ever, attained by bureaucratic entity. And the reason for that is because bureaucracies are not
economically efficient, they are politically efficient. What that means by political efficiency is
that bureaucrats rather than explore alternate routes to a particular end that might be more
economically or time efficient, their main concern is that they not be harmed politically, that they
need to protect their agency and their budget, and exploring those alternate routes exposes that
agency to political risk. It's safer to just do what they're told by the elected official even when
doing what they're told makes no sense. They'd rather do that and suffer the consequences of
making their elected masters unhappy. So bureaucracies are highly efficient politically. They
tend to do exactly what they have been told to do by our elected officials. But that seldom makes
them economically efficient.
Slide Six
>> This has led a colleague of mine, political scientist Doug Van Belle, took it forward what he
calls "the cockroach theory of bureaucracy." Now, by cockroach he does not mean the
bureaucrats are ugly disgusting creatures who must be squashed. What he means is that is
looking at the behavior of cockroaches. When the lights are turned out and nobody is around,
what do the cockroaches do? Well, they do pretty much whatever they want to do. They have
free run at the place and they go about their little cockroach scurrying task, whatever that may
be. But as soon as the lights are turned on and someone enters the room, what do the cockroaches
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do? They immediately scurry for cover. Their nocturnal instinct says stay in the dark because if
you are caught in the light, you're going to be squashed. Now, this is actually a fairly useful
analogy to the way bureaucratic agencies do their decision making. When the public is not
paying attention, then bureaucrats are free to spend their budgets and pursue their agendas that
have been given to them by their elected officials. But if something bad happens and the public
suddenly says, what is going on over there? Then what happens is the elected officials hold
hearings and heads of the agencies have to stand at the table and be publically shamed for their
actions. Or if it's not a high profile case but the elected officials are nevertheless angry with
them, their budget can be curtailed in the next budget process as congress expresses its
displeasure with an agency by not fully funding its priorities. So, just as a cockroach doesn't ever
want to be caught in the light, a government bureaucrat never really wants to be on the receiving
end of that kind of congressional oversight and scrutiny. And so rather than engage in behavior
that might expose them to attention and risk, they will play it safe and be able to do exactly what
the elected officials have asked them to do. And that way, even if the outcome is a completely
irrational, inefficient outcome that goes contrary to what the elected officials had in mind, the
bureaucrat is safe because they have followed the guidelines given to them by the elected
officials. So, this is a useful way of thinking about bureaucracies and why they do indeed
sometimes scurry for cover.
Slide Seven
>> Okay, so let's look at what types of bureaucracy agencies there are out there. You know, first,
there are departments and these are typically large umbrella agencies that have lots of smaller
agencies, subsidiary agencies within them. And these departments typically have cabinet status
but not necessarily because the President gets to decide which departments are cabinet and which
are not. Then there are the independent agencies and these are agencies that are not a subsidiary
agency to a larger department. They have an independent budget and independent mission and
do not have oversight by government agency. Their oversight is directly from the executive
branch of the White House. So these would be examples of NASA, the Peace Corps, Social
Security, again, these are agencies that have a unique and particular mission that doesn't fit
neatly within the larger mission of an umbrella department. Other type of bureaucracy is the
independent regulatory commissions. Now, these are independent in a couple of ways. One is
that the heads of these agencies are appointed for six year terms typically and that gives them a
measure of political independence because unlike the other heads of agencies, they do not serve
at the whim of the President. So if the President doesn't like the way the head of the EPA is
doing things, they can ask for their resignation and replace them with someone who will behave
the way they want them to. The independent regulatory agencies, however, are somewhat like
judicial appointments in that when the President appoints and they have been confirmed, they
remain in that office until the end of that term or they do something truly horrible that warrants
impeachment, but that seldom happens. Typically, somebody will resign or die in office is the
only time that these appointments have to be filled in an intern basis. So, they're independent and
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that they have political independence. They're also independent because like the independent
agencies, they are not folded into a larger department, umbrella department. So this would be
things like the National Labor Relations Board, the Security and Exchange Commission, and the
Federal Communications Commission, the FCC. So they have a regulatory function so they are
granted a large degree of independence. The last category for the bureaucratic types within the
federal government are the government corporations and these are government entities that buy
and sell stuff. They offer a service that is purchased. Unlike the other government agencies
which may charge a fee for use like the national parks. But for the most part, the agency operates
within the budget that Congress gives them. These government corporations in addition to
getting money as part of the normal government budgetary process, they also generate income to
augment their budget as they provide a service. So examples here are the post office, the FDIC
which is the banking insurance insuring deposits at banks and the Amtrak railway system. Now,
these government corporations are not profitable but they are corporations, meaning that they do
have some of their budget is offset by the income that they derive.
Slide Eight
>> Another point to understand about who the bureaucracy is is to look at the differences within
the bureaucracy for the appointed status of bureaucrats. About 85 percent of government
employees are career civil servants, meaning they got their job because they got a degree or they
took a test or they passed some merit based assessment that they were confident and qualified
enough to do the job. They then continue working as a career civil servant. They do not serve at
the whim of the executive branch. So no matter what presidents come or go, their job remains
secure as long as they continue to do their job. They can clearly be fired for reasons related to
their job but they can't be fired for political reasons. They are protected employees in that regard.
And that's about 85 percent of the bureaucracy. The other 15 percent are the appointees, this
people with appointment status mean that the President nominated them to the job that they had
and the senate confirmed them. These are typically the heads of the government agencies,
ambassadors, the upper level management of all the government agencies. They are people who
have left the private sector at the invitation of the President and work within the bureaucracy at
whatever task the President has given to them. Now, when a new President comes in, they all
lose their job. Now, there are very few appointees that are held over from one administration to
the next. Most of them lose their job because the President, if it's a new President, has a whole
raft of names of people who are qualified for the jobs that agree with the President's political
vision. And so they are going to remove their predecessor's appointees and replace them with
their own. There are some exceptions, people who have a functional expertise that is needed, are
often asked to remain. We can look at the Secretary of Defense, Gates, was appointed by
President Bush and asked to remain in that position by President Obama. So again, it's not
unheard off for these appointees to stay but most of them do not. And whenever there is an
election, the people who are on the political party of the winning side send in all their resumes to
the transition team and the people who are currently in government send out their resumes to the
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private sector hoping to land on their feet some place. 'Cause when the new President comes in,
odds are they have lost their job. Now, it used to be that all civil servants were appointees, 100
percent were. And so let's look at some of the history to see how that changed.
Slide Nine
>> For most of our country's history, the bureaucracy was composed entirely of appointments,
appointed status. There were no career civil servants. Everyone in the government lost their job
when a new president came in and everyone in their government owed their job to the new
president. Now, the way this work was through a patronage system, meaning as you worked on a
campaign to help someone get office and that person won, they would reward their campaign
workers with government jobs and you would--to use the cliche, you would hit your wagon to a
rising star and work for the success of that individual. And as that individual advance through the
elective ranks of government, your fortune advanced and you got more and more important jobs
within the bureaucracy. Now, you should note also another change from the current bureaucracy
to the historical operations of bureaucracy is that the current bureaucracy is much larger. If you
remember our discussion in--of the executive branch, the beginning of our country, our country
was very small. We did not--the federal government did not have the scope of activities that it
has now and not have the budget that it currently has. So there were just were not as many
government jobs as there are now so it was possible for all of them to be fulfilled by the
president. Now, the president though can't just create jobs. It is congress that creates the
government agencies which create the jobs. So as congress would decide that the government
needed to fulfill some kind of function, congress would create and authorize an agency to do that
function. The president would then staff that agency with their friends within the patronage
system.
Slide Ten
>> This system of patronage worked well for the first century of our country, again, because it
was small but also because when an employee was connected to the political fortunes of their
boss, they were committed to doing a good job because their boss could fire them at any minute
and also committed to putting to succeeding so that their boss could be seen in a positive light
and get reelection which was how they would save their jobs. It also helps build the political
machines of some of our major cities in the east as people would--immigrants would come off
the boat, they would meet someone at the worth there who would say, "Welcome to America.
Here is a pair of shoes for your kid. Here is address of an apartment down a few blocks away. I'd
give them my card and they'll give you a place to stay and here's a number, an address of some
place to go, let them know I sent you and they'll give you a job." And this immigrants thought,
"Wow, America really is a land of opportunity." And they would go and then sure enough,
there'd be an apartment waiting for them and on Monday, the father would go there and sure
enough, there'd be a job, laying bricks or whatever. And the politicians would then come back
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around election time and they'd say, "How are things working for you? Well, that's great. Well,
remember we need you to vote and here's the way we need you to vote." And so there was an
exchange, a quid pro quo, these government services in exchange for votes. Now, the reason why
there would be a job waiting for that person is because the politician would have a contract to
maybe recobble Main Street and there's three different bricklayers that they could hire to do that.
Well, one of those bricklayers would offer to provide a job to any immigrant who was given to
them and so that's the bricklayer who would get the contract and so the sort of you-scratch-myback-I-scratch-yours way of doing business, again, was how the political dynasties and the great
cities of the east were built. Now, the system worked but tremendous inefficiencies are built into
that kind of a system because you have people doing work and employing government agencies
whose only qualification are their connections. That the patronage system is the ultimate not who
you know, what you know system. And so you had incompetent bureaucrats. You also had graft
where the public works projects would be paid for and at every level between the politician and
the contractor and the subcontractor, some of those funds would be skimmed off to the side. And
so there was graft, there was corruption, there was incompetence. And so there was considerable
movement to reform the bureaucracy in the late 1800s. It was part of the Progressive Movement
at that time. The argument was to make a professional bureaucracy, a professional civil service
that would operate on a meritocracy and become more in lined with Max Weber's vision of an
efficient bureaucracy. And this movement was gaining a little bit of esteem but it really built a
lot of support with the assassination of James Garfield. Garfield was elected president and as all
other presidents before him was in the process of hiring workers for the federal government
because, again, 100 percent of the workers were appointed and so all of the federal workers who
had been appointed by the previous president were out of a job and Garfield was appointing new
ones. Well, there was a gentleman who had worked on the Garfield campaign who felt that he
had been promised a job and he wanted to be a postal worker and Garfield had not made any
such promise to him, the man was a low-level campaign employee and nobody's really sure
where he got the idea that he was given a job when he wasn't. So when he did not get the job that
he thought was due to him, he became enraged and in the first instance of the term going postal,
he took a gun and shot James Garfield in a train station and killed him and the public was
outraged that the patronage system had resulted in the death of their president and so it gave a lot
of momentum to this notion of Civil Service Reform and finally culminated in the passage of the
Pendleton Act in 1883 which set up the system we have now where 85 percent of the
bureaucracy are career civil servants and only the upper 15 percent, the management have
appointed status. Now, one question to ask whenever there's a major change in government, you
need to look at the politics behind that and the question to ask is why would Congress pass a law
carving out 85 percent of the patronage jobs that their political party was used to giving to
people? How could it possibly be in their interest to pass this law and take away all of those
goodies that they used to use to motivate campaign workers? Well, the answer can be found in
the changing political fortunes of the Republican Party. The Republicans ran the government, the
executive and legislator branches from the 1860s to the 1890s. But the electoral patterns had
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begun to change by the early 1880s. The Republicans were losing state houses, state legislatures,
more and more Democrats were being elected to Congress and the Republicans could see that in
the near future, it was likely that a Democrat would win the White House. And so by passing this
act in 1883, what it did was it locked in all of those Republican appointees with the lifetime
career guarantee they could not be fired by the Democrat who would win the White House,
whoever the next Democrat was. So Congress seldom does things for altruism. There's usually a
political motif behind it. But all of those Republican appointees eventually died and retired and
were replaced by people who had to pass a civil service exam or demonstrate competence or
merit of some kind to get those jobs and we now have the civil service that we currently do.
Slide Eleven
>> The next round of civil service reform occurred during the new deal. After a call in the
previous presentation, what the new deal did was dramatically increased the size of the
bureaucracy and the size of the executive branch as a whole. There were lots and lots of jobs
given out as a result of the new deal. And this is during the Depression where unemployment
was around 25 percent. And so people desperately needed those jobs. Now, what the Roosevelt
Administration been doing is when it was time to reelect Roosevelt, the foreman of whatever
work crew you are with would come around and say, "Hey, how is this job working out for
you?" and you'd say, "Great sir, you know, my family is eating now and really appreciative of
that." And they would say, "Great, well you know, the only reason you have your job is because
of President Roosevelt. Now there's a Roosevelt reelection rally taking place next Saturday. I
really hope to see you there. Oh, by the way, we're going to be passing the hat, collecting the
contributions for Roosevelt's reelection campaign. I want to make sure to see you be generous
and show how much you appreciate the job you have," right, and then they'd walk away. Well,
message given. The concern was that Roosevelt was using the bureaucracy for political gain. He
was making sure that people voted for Roosevelt in order to keep those desperately needed jobs.
So congress reacted to those abuses by passing the Hatch Act of 1939. Now what the Hatch Act
says is that a government employee is not allowed to engage in political campaigns, partisan
actions. And the reason that was put in was to prevent the boss' from using the power of their
offices to get the employees and the civil servants who work for them to act in a certain way, to
vote a certain way. So it was an attempt to depoliticize the bureaucracy. We should note also that
Arizona has its own version of the Hatch Act. Within the constitution of Arizona, it explicitly
prohibits government employees from using the resources or position of their office to influence
the outcome of an election. This means that employees cannot send out campaign material with
their email or they can not photocopy a campaign flyer with the office machine. It also has meant
that for me in my job as a political scientist that I have to be careful when I invite political
speakers to come talk to students. I need to make sure that of the other political party is also
extended an invitation. So there is never an appearance that the school is giving favoritism or
free public access to the school's resources that are not available to other political parties. So this
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Hatch Act affects the state as well. It's not the Hatch Act, it's the Arizona constitution does but
it's the same dynamic occurs in Arizona.
Slide Two
Slide Twelve
>> The next major reform was the 1946 Administrative Procedures ACT, the APA. And what
the APA does is that it sets the procedures that agencies have to follow anytime they make rules.
This was another attempt by congress to bring in what they saw as an out of control bureaucracy.
Anytime a bureaucracy wants to engage in an action or create a new administrative rule, they
have to follow a series of steps before that rule can take effect, they have to notify the public,
they have to take public input, they hold hearings, they then republish the rule after they've
modified it, after the public comment period. And then and only then can they put the rules in the
place. It also set appeals process so that if you feel that you've been untreated fairly by an agency
or an administrative decision, may be a regulatory ruling that goes against you, there's an appeals
process so that there is some way for another entity to review the regulatory decisions that have
been made so that it is not arbitrary. Now, this is one reason why the bureaucracy is inefficient,
is because it's required to go through multiple steps before it can actually do anything. If the
government wants to build a road for example, they can't just go out and hire someone to build a
road. They have to bid out every aspect of that job with and have to guarantee that there are
multiple bidders, they have to ensure that minority businesses have an ample opportunity to
make a bid. They have to make sure that the contractors that they hire are following all of the
labor practices and procedures that Congress has set forth. They have to buy all of their
equipment from the lowest bidder which means every piece of the equipment has to go out for a
lengthy bidding process. The result is that it takes a long time for the government to do things
that it would--on first flash appear to be commonsense. The people get frustrated with these
delays and they complain about red tape. The red tape refers to the tape that used--to be used to
bind documents when they were placed in libraries. And so as these rules and regulations were
built up and built up, the documents and regulations would be wrapped up in this red tape. And
so, red tape has come to be synonymous with lots and lots of rules, hoops you have to jump
through, things you have to do, requirements that have to be met before you can get anything
done. And it's quite frustrating. If I can make a plea for why we have red tape though, every one
of these rules is there because Congress established those rules for some reason. Often, it was to
pursue a political objectives of some kind, often, it was to correct what was perceived as a
weakness in the process. Many times, it is to prevent abuses of power by individuals within the
federal government. It's also often the case that these rules are put in place to protect the taxpayer
money from being wasted. And so what, on its face, looks like an annoying labyrinth of
regulations before bureaucracy can act is the cumulative effect of the desire of the elected branch
to protect the citizens from arbitrary government rules. We live in a society where the
government can't just decide to do stuff because the leader decides it's a good thing to do. Once
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the leader decides that it's a good thing to do, they have to follow a set sequence of procedures
which guarantee or at least make it more likely that what the agency is doing is in the public
interest and isn't a waste of taxpayer money or allowing the arbitrary use of power on people. So,
as annoying as the red tape is, it is part of what protects us as a free society from government
access.
Slide Thirteen
>> Now, the federal bureaucracy is so large and the powers that it holds are so vast that it is
intimidating to a citizen who has to interact with that bureaucracy. And at times it can be
frightening. When I think of the bumper stickers that I used to see all the time that said, "I Love
My Country But Fear My Government". Well, it is the faceless bureaucrat in Washington who is
for the embodiment of what the people are afraid of with a strong central government. And so,
the question of who controls these faceless bureaucrats is an important one. The first point I want
to make in this discussion is that the bureaucrats, the government employees are doing what we
tell them to do. And while they are making rules and they are not elected officials on its face that
looks undemocratic, but we need to remember that we live in a representative democracy. In our
democracy, we delegate power. We as citizens choose our elected representatives and give them
the ability to make laws. Going back to John Locke and that social contract theory. We
voluntarily advocate some of our personal sovereignty so that we can live in a stable, just, free
society. Now, our elected representatives are tasked with securing our rights. And so, we give
that sovereignty to them so that they can pass laws that are in their judgment benefitting the
common good. So the idea of delegating authority is central to a representative democracy. Now
with the bureaucracy, that delegation is simply taken one step further where our elected officials
have created an agency, set the parameters for what that agency can do, and authorize that
agency to make decisions so Congress has delegated its authority to those government agencies
to make the rules. Now, also remember the cockroach theory that these appointed officials
typically attempt to be politically efficient. They don't want to get called in to a hearing and get
squashed by the elected officials. And so, they tend to do what they're told to do. They follow the
orders that the executive branch has given to them, otherwise the appointed officials will be
fired. And they attempt to follow the guidelines that Congress has sent forth, otherwise their
agency will suffer. Now, that all sounds well and good but the problem is that the federal
government is now such a vast bureaucracy with literally hundreds of agencies that it is difficult
for the executive office, you know, to the President and his White House staff or the
congressional offices with their oversight. They fully keep track of everything that's going on. So
it raises this question of who exactly is in charge here and what implication does the answer to
that question have for our freedoms and liberties.
Slide Fourteen
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>> Now, the first answer to that question of who is in charge is nobody. This theory argues that
the bureaucracy is out of control, that they are not answerable to congress or the president and
that they are engaged in activities that promote their own self interest or some private or secret
agenda. Agencies use the power the congress has given to them to benefit themselves as opposed
to the nation as a whole. Now, this theory of an out of control government, essentially a shadow
government that is not elected and not accountable was quite popular in the 1960s and '70s
particularly after Watergate when trust in the government institutions plummeted. And this
theory continues to be popular in Hollywood, there're many--a movie has been made where the
hero has to battle shadowy government entities that are hiding what they were doing from
congress or their superiors in the executive branch. Now, that makes for a good story which is
why Hollywood continues to use this motif. There's not a whole lot of evidence that the
bureaucracy is out of control. If you look at what the bureaucracy does and when it does it and
how it does it, what we find for the most part is that the bureaucracy does what it's been told to
do, that it does indeed follow the rules that have been set down by congress. It is sensitive to
oversight by congress even the threat of oversight. And they followed the directions given by the
executive branch for the most part. And so, the idea that there is a shadow government secretly
running the show and it's accountable to no one, again, makes for good Hollywood but in reality,
the guy with the black glasses is actually closer to a cockroach than to the Hollywood action
hero.
Slide Fifteen
>> The next answer to the question of who controls bureaucracy is special interests, that interest
groups, corporate interests, people with a particular agenda are able to use their influence to
capture the industry's regulators. Now, of course in these groups who try to influence rule
making that is necessary part of private business and with the federal government that is so large
and with a regulatory environment that is so complex and reaches into so many aspects of any
business, it would make sense that a business interest would try to influence the outcome of that
regulatory environment in a way that would be favorable to them. Now, whether or not this
happens is not up for debate, it does happen. The question is how much does it happen?
Slide Sixteen
>> Speaker 1: The regulatory capture hypothesis argues that interest groups form an iron triangle
with bureaucratic leaders and congressional members to create a regulatory environment that is
favorable to them. Now the way this works is interest groups provide campaign contributions to
members of Congress and in exchange members of Congress pass regulatory laws that are
favorable to that group. They also testify at congressional hearings and provide expert testimony
for congress. Now the connection between interest groups and the bureaucratic leaders is that
interest groups provide expertise to the bureaucracy as well so that when the bureaucracy is
considering a regulation the interest groups will come and testify as to the impact of that
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regulation. But in addition members of the interest groups actually become the leadership at
those agencies. There is a revolving door of sorts between government agencies and the
industries that they are regulating. So when the President wants someone to regulate say, the
dairy industry, he's going to pick somebody who is knowledge about the dairy industry. And
typically the people that he chooses from are executives within that industry. So they move from
an industry position over to a Federal bureaucratic position and they are now making regulations
on the industry that they came out of. Now those heads of agencies typically are only there for a
few years. Running the government agency is a thankless job, the pay is not as good as the
private sector. Everybody doesn't like you because you're a bureaucrat, it's difficult, the hours are
long and so after they've done that job for a couple of years, and again, the average is around two
years, the head of that agency will resign and go back into the private sector. Now, once they go
into the private sector they now have spent two years inside of that government agency and have
made connections and relationships with the regulators over that industry. And so industry will
take these appointed officials and offer them a cushy vice president of governmental affairs
position where they can make a couple of hundred thousand dollars acting as a lobbyist for that
industry. And they then go to Congress to testify on behalf of the industry but also go back to
their former work place, the agency regulating the industry, to talk to their friends and former
coworkers to encourage them to enact regulation that is favorable to the industry. Now if an
agency decides it wants to really crack down on an industry that person who is responsible for
that decision, by doing that is pretty much guaranteeing they are not going to get that cushy vice
presidential job when they get out of the agency. The way to get that cushy job is to not crack
down on the industry and instead work on behalf of the industry while you're in the agency. So
there's a cozy relationship that sort of naturally forms between interest groups and government
agencies and between interest groups and members of Congress. Now there is also a relationship
between agencies and members of Congress, the bottom legislation of the triangle, is that the
agency regulators have to testify to Congress to let them know what the impact of legislation
might be on that industry. They also have to go to Congress to ask for their budget. Congress
determines the budget for the agency and so again, if an agency decides to really crack down on
an interest group, that interest group, using their lobbyists, may contact their good friends in
Congress who they have given campaign contributions to and that member of Congress may hold
a hearing and call the head of that agency in and demand to know why they are cracking down
on that industry and hurting business and causing jobs and all sorts of accusations that can be
made in a public hearing. so again, going back to the cockroach model, if you are an agency head
the safest thing to do is regulate an industry in a way to not anger their allies in Congress and
also to not alienate the industry in order to have a job for when the President changes and you get
fired from your government agency job.
Slide Seventeen
>> These triangles of influence can be quite rigid because nobody in the triangle has an incentive
to cause a problem. Everyone has incentive to go along and keep the other members of the
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triangle happy. Now you'll notice nowhere in that triangle was the public or the public interest.
This creates a problem because occasionally an industry will enjoy lax regulation and a free and
easy regulatory environment and as a result commit some action that severely harms that public
interest. Now at that point we go back to our cockroach theory. Once the public becomes
engaged, when the lights get turned on the agency heads scurry for cover and that iron triangle
isn't really iron. Because it looks like iron, it's nice and firm and fast but as soon as the lights are
turned on and public attention is focused on that triangle the triangles vaporize. And that is
because the agencies begin to scurry for cover, the Congressional members begin to attack the
agency and the industry even though they were friends with both prior to the crisis, they now, in
order to win reelection have to side with the public and will attack the agency and industry. And
then the industry usually just tries to keep its head down until the storm can blow over. But other
times they will engage that process to try to prevail. So some examples that are shown on this
slide is the cigarette industry. In the 1990s the head of the FDA decided that it wanted to regulate
nicotine as an addictive drug. Right now the FDA does not regulate nicotine. And that infuriated
the cigarette manufacturers because if it were to be acknowledged that nicotine is an addictive
drug regulated by the FDA that would severely curtail the ability of the cigarette manufacturers
to sell cigarettes to anybody they wanted to. So the cigarette manufacturers contacted their allies
in Congress and their allies in Congress called hearings demanding to know why the FDA was
regulating tobacco. And informed the FDA in not uncertain terms that they did not have the
statutory authority to regulate tobacco. They then threatened to zero out the funding for the FDA
if the FDA did not back off regulating tobacco. Ultimately what happened was President Clinton
fired the head of the FDA who had wanted to regulate tobacco and replaced him with someone
who had no interest in regulating tobacco whatsoever. At that point Congress backed off,
restored the funding to the FDA and the triangle continued unmolested. So in that case the
triangle survived the conflict. Another example is when with ValuJet. ValuJet was a low-cost
airline that was enjoying the lax regulatory environment that happened with deregulation in the
Reagan and Bush administrations. And that worked out great, there was and iron triangle with
the airline industry, the FAA and Congress and that triangle thrived until a ValuJet plane crashed
in the Florida Everglades killing everybody on board. Investigation revealed that the passenger
jet was carrying oxygen tanks in the cargo of the passenger jet and those oxygen tanks were not
certified to be in a high atmosphere, low pressure setting and they exploded, which is what
brought the jet down. Now that was only made possible, the combination of a passenger airline
carrying hazardous cargo because of lax oversight and safety regulations on the part of the FAA.
So Congress held hearings, the FAA director resigned and the new rules were put in place to
tighten up regulations on the airline industry. Again, that iron triangle evaporated. Another iron
triangle existed with Enron. Enron was an energy company and a very solid triangle had formed
between Enron, the Bush administration and the Department of Energy. The Bush administration
crafted an energy bill that was passed in 2002 and that energy bill created a regulatory
environment that enabled Enron to engage in it's practices without a whole lot of oversight. And
it turns out that Enron actually wrote most of that legislation which was then given to Congress
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through Vice President Chaney's office. Now this all came to light because Enron collapsed and
it turns out that their entire billing scheme was fictitious. That they, that Enron was making
money from energy deliveries that did not actually exist. And again, once Enron collapsed and
the public realized the cozy relationship that occurred that iron triangle disappeared. And finally
the last example is British Petroleum and the oil spill off of the Gulf. There was an iron triangle
between British Petroleum as well as other mineral and energy companies and the Federal
Mining agency that was supposed to conduct oversight with them and the Congressional
committees that also looked at that area of minerals and energy. In fact, some whistle blowers in
that agency came forward and pointed out that the industry, not necessarily British Petroleum but
industry in general, didn't -- and nobody is naming names, had invited the regulators to wild
parties where alcohol and prostitutes and money and tickets to games and gambling all took
place. So that these regulators who are supposed to be regulating industries were instead being
shown a good time by those industries. And not regulating at all. Well, after the oil spill in the
Gulf, again, the public spotlight is shown on that iron triangle and these sorts of shenanigans
were brought to light. And that iron triangle vanished. And the Congress passed a new law
splitting the agencies that regulate mining and minerals into two separate agencies. One that
helps industry exploit those resources and then a separate agency that monitors safety and
environmental concerns. So again, the iron triangles do exist but they are less iron in the sense
that they evaporate when the public pays attention. If you, the public, are not paying attention
iron triangles thrive. But when the public does pay attention the triangles vanish.
Slide Eighteen
>> The next theory of who controls the bureaucracy is the President. Because if you remember
the President is the CEO of the executive branch. The President has the power to appoint the
heads of all the agencies and also through that appointment process set that overall tone and
direction that an agency is going to take. So on paper it would appear then that the President is at
the top of that pyramid of power but the reality is far from it. Because while the heads of those
agencies are indeed serving at the will of the President the remaining career bureaucrats are not.
That's the 85 percent of the civil service who can't be fired for political reasons. These people
have seen Presidents come and Presidents go and so they may or may not follow the direction
that comes down from on top. It's easy for bureaucracy to wait out a President who is trying to
make them do something they don't want to do. An example of this would be the EPA under
President Bush. President Bush wanted the EPA to not issue reports that supported global
warming and issue reports that did support oil exploration in the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve. The
Anwar reserve. The career bureaucrats of the EPA didn't agree with either of those positions.
They were writing a brief that opposed exploratory drilling in Anwar and they were writing a
brief that would enable the EPA to begin to regulate carbon as a pollutant. Well the Bush
administration told the EPA that they wanted the opposite to happen and so they EPA said yes,
Mr. President, we'll get right on that. Right? Years went by and a report that was favorable to
mining in the Alaskan wilderness didn't get presented and didn't get presented. Finally, years into
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the Bush administration they issued a report that was lukewarm at best and opposed in general to
mining. The head of the EPA then exercised his authority as the head of the EPA and removed a
lot of the content of that report before making it public. But the point I'm making is that the
agency didn't follow the direction that the President had made. They simply used delaying tactics
to try to wait out the President. Now when President Obama came in there was a EPA report
issued within a few months of him being President which indicated that carbon is a pollutant and
the EPA therefore had the ability to regulate carbon. That report had been sitting on the shelves
for years while the bureaucracy simply waited for a President to change who was more in line
with what they wanted to do. So again, the President is nominally in charge of the bureaucracy
but there are many tools available to a bureaucrat who wants to delay or resist the direction from
the President. What this means is that if a President wants to come in and change the bureaucracy
that President is probably going to meet with failure. It's very difficult to do. On the other hand if
an agency is doing something that President doesn't want it is actually within the President's
power to stop that agency from acting. Again, the Bush administration excised the portions of
that EPA report regarding Alaska that it did not agree with. And so what that tells us is that a
President is much more able to block bureaucratic action then it is to create bureaucratic action.
So the President nominally controls the bureaucracy but it's more of a negative control than a
pro-active control.
Slide Nineteen
>> The fourth theory of who controls the bureaucracy is that it is Congress. Now Congress does
have very real levers to influence and control the bureaucracy. Congress creates the agencies, the
agency does not exist in the absence of congressional action. So that gives Congress the ability to
determine what an agencies powers are, set boundaries on what an agencies jurisdiction are and
create the processes by which that agency has to operate by. So that is a tremendous lever of
influence on a bureaucratic agency. Congress also sets the budget and as the example that I gave
with the FDA Congress is not afraid to use the budget as a tool of influence to get the
bureaucracy to do what they want it to do. Congress also sets the procedures that agencies have
to operate by. And those procedures can determine outcomes because the way the rules are
written can have a huge impact on the outcome of a given process or policy debate. So in review,
it is Congress that holds the real power over bureaucrats rather then the President or industry or
the bureaucrats themselves. In each of those examples that I gave before, the question of whether
or not an agency would act was ultimately decided by Congressional oversight. If Congress is
holding hearings and Congress is asking difficult questions then those agencies will act and react
to those cues from Congress. Like good cockroaches, they do not want to get squished by
Congress. if you recall, when we talked about why members of Congress are reelected so readily,
one of the explanations was constituency service. That a member of Congress is able to call up a
government agency and request that agency to take a course of action or start an investigation.
The agencies say, yes ma'am and get right on it. That's because those agencies want to keep
members of Congress happy. They do not want the members of Congress who provide their
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budget and their oversight to decide to look more closely at their agency and begin to restrict
their budget or the parameters of what they're able to do. So in the end it is Congress that has the
larger control. Although the President and industry do have tremendous influence.
Slide Twenty
>> We'll illustrate this process of how an agency is created and the parameters are set, by
looking at the Department of Homeland Security. Now if we look at how that department came
to be, we see that in the 1990s, the Clinton Administration had begun to host a series of
workshops addressing the weaknesses in our domestic defenses. They were focused on terrorist
threats, they were focused on chemical and biological attacks, and they were focused on cyberattacks and the Clinton Administration hosted a series of these meetings to identify the
weaknesses in our defenses in each of those areas, and make recommendations for how those
weaknesses could be addressed. Now those recommendations had been drafted by 2000, and the
committee that had put that together had recommended that the myriad of agencies that dealt
with these issues were inefficient and incapable of really communicating with one another, and
so they had recommended that there be some centralization of information to coordinate the
actions of all of these agencies. So that, as far as that work, had progressed then after the
September 11th attacks occurred, President Bush took those recommendations which were sitting
on the shelf waiting for him when he took office. He had not taken action on those during his
first 9 months in office, but after September 11th, he took them down and used them to create an
office of Homeland Security. Now this was an office within the White House, so it was part of
the White House offices similar to the drug czar or the other advisors that work in the White
House. President Bush did not want Congress to create a department because by running it out of
the White House, he would have full control over what that office looked like and what it did and
he did not want Congress to have their hands in it. He then named Tom Ridge to be the head of
that office. Now Tom Ridge only had as much power in that office as the agencies that he was
asking to do things thought he had. Because he was an office out of the White House czar to use
the current coinage or current term, he didn't have any statutory authority to make those agencies
do anything. They would do it if they felt that Ridge had the ear of the President and as long as
Ridge had the confidence of the President, those agencies would follow his recommendations so
as to not run afoul of the wishes of the President. But as soon as Ridge seized to be seen as being
one of the key players in the White House, those agencies felt free to ignore his
recommendations, or take his recommendations under advisement and not actually do them. So,
by 2003, the limits of running the Homeland Security out of the White House had become clear.
So Congress then took action and created a Department of Homeland Security and what they did
was, there were many, many agencies that had an impact in some way on Homeland Security.
Now these were all agencies that had been identified by that early study in the Clinton
Administration. They consolidated all those agencies into one department and gave the new
Secretary of that department the clear authority to tell those agencies what to do. Now, that
consolidation led to different inefficiencies. For instance, FEMA, the Federal Emergency
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Management Agency, because it was part of the Department of Homeland Security was totally
focused on preparing the country for a biological, or chemical, or nuclear attack. Their job was to
create the infrastructure so that when such attach occurred as most experts believe it is inevitable
at some point; the country will be attacked by one of those weapons of mass destruction. So,
FEMA was focused on building the infrastructure so that when that attack occurred, the country
would be ready. That created a problem though.
Slide Twenty-One
>> When hurricane Katrina attacked the South Coast of the United States the new inefficiencies
were uncovered, meaning FEMA had been so focused on responding to a weapons of mass
destruction attack and FEMA as an agency had been given such a low priority in the overall
Department of Homeland Security, that it was simply unprepared for the crisis that occurred in
the Gulf States. A similar situation, you could argue anyways, that the Customs and what used to
be the INS, the Immigration Nationalization Service, was combined with Customs to create the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the ICE Agency. Again, as part of Homeland Security,
they had focused most of their resources on preventing terrorists from infiltrating the country and
solidifying cargo ships that came through; the scanning of cargo so that a weapon of mass
destruction would not come through the boarder. Antiterrorism had been the focus of ICE which
means there really wasn't a whole lot of attention, relatively anyways, being paid to the issue of
illegal immigration and securing the boarder from economic immigrants. There was tremendous
effort being put on securing the boarder from weapons of mass destruction and Arab terrorists.
So by putting all these agencies under one umbrella of a new Department of Homeland Security,
it led to some inefficiency. Michael Chertoff was the first Secretary in Homeland Security and he
attempted to get his agency to be able to do everything under its domain. To be able to protect
the homeland from a terrorist attack, but also do border patrol, and also do customs enforcement,
and also prepare FEMA for a disaster response, at the same time, preparing the country for a
response if a WMD were to strike somewhere. So, one result of that Katrina crisis is that disaster
response is now a Federal issue. The FEMA is no longer going to wait for a Governor to declare
State of Emergency before it acts. It now has the authority to act immediately, hopefully in
concert with a Governor, but it will do what it wants to do in spite of, or in addition to whatever
the Governor is going to do.
Slide Twenty-Two
>> The current Secretary of Homeland Security is Janet Napolitano appointed by President
Obama. Under Janet Napolitano the Homeland Security has put a renewed emphasis on
patrolling immigration, patrolling the border and policing immigration. But the difficulty is that
that department is bound by the priorities set by Congress and Congress has not allocated any
additional new money to beef up the border patrol or deport illegal immigrants that are inside the
country. Her budget for those activities is the same budget that existed in the Bush
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administration. Now in spite of that, there has been some increase in activity as priorities have
shifted. Of the department of Homeland Security or the ICE agency within that department
anyway, deported more people in 2009 than had ever been deported by the previous Bush
Administration. So there is an increase in activity there but yet the department is still criticized
for inadequate and incomplete response. So this case study illustrates how difficult it is for any
one group to control a government agency. Or for the President to set a direction and have that
agency follow that direction in a way that the President thought it was going to be. It also
illustrates how it is congress ultimately that sets that rules and the budget and the direction that
these agencies follow.
Slide Twenty-Three
>> This picture of one man working, while ten men watch him is the image that comes to mind
when we think of Government Agencies doing jobs. We are frustrated at their inability to make
common sense decisions, or get things done quickly. We also go to the movies on the weekend
and watch images of seemingly all-powerful Government Agencies that know everything and are
capable of doing almost anything that seem extremely threatening to the freedoms of individual
citizens. Now, what I hope you gathered from this presentation is that the bureaucracy is not out
of control, and it is inept and inefficient in precisely the way we have designed it to be inept and
inefficient. This presentation concludes this section of the course on The Institutions of National
Government and we now move on to the next section of the course and begin discussing the
institutions of State and Local Government in Arizona.
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