> This Lecture Will Cover Concepts That Are Part of the AEPA Objective 11, Understand

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 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 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 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 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 around election time and they'd say, "How are things working for you? Well, that's great.