The Bureacracy

Unwieldy in the best of times

Approx. 1.9 million civilian employees.

The Federal Bureaucracy is a stable body that does not shift with the parties

Newt:

You go into a room and say “March North”The room agrees, you leave. Then the room

says that it has to keep marching south but will have a consultant study the effects of marching North.

Maybe next year we’ll march North.

Nixon

Management by Objective to reign in anti-poverty programs from the Johnson administration

Clinton

Reinventing Government

Improve Government Services and streamline rules.

Al Gore was in charge of this.

Bush

Aimed for more centralized control of the bureaucracy.

Tightened control and gave power to political appointees often times ahead of agency people.

Under Bush many, including scientists with the National Resources Conservation Service worried that their decisions on funding and programs would be overruled for political purposes.

While being a distinct entity within the Government, the bureaucracy can also be deeply affected by political decisions by Congress and the President.

It was never meant to be like this.

The founders used the original bureaucracy to collect taxes, fees and deliver the mail.

Most realized that corruption was near-inevitable with independent agents.

Washington tried to avoid this by appointment men of superior local reputation

Appoint the right kind of people to get the right kind of results.

This succeed at creating a reputable, reliable civil service.

Thanks, George!

Andrew Jackson: The Democratic Spirit,

Rotation in office…. Official would serve for a short time then be rotated out.

No experience necessary

The Spoils System: winning parties dispensing government jobs

These two ideas were supposed to democratize the Government.

Instead it led to the building of a large scale bureaucracy

Weber

Characteristics of a bureaucratic institution

Hierarchical structure of authority

Commands flow downward

Information flows upward

Division of Labor

Specialization in taking on complex tasks.

Abstract Rules

What is to be done

Who is to do it

Impersonality

Treating everyone the same, regardless of individuality

Career System

Appointment and advancement by merit and with job security

Specified Goals

On these, collective action can be aimed toward them.

Perfect World

A bureaucracy is a machine with humans as interchangeable parts that are geared toward collective action

Principals (leaders, presidents) control agents (the humans in the machine) through this

Under Jackson, government became more impersonal…. A departure from the days of Washington and Jefferson.

The increase in complexity led too…

Red Tape

Reform

Reform was needed

Why?

The spoils system bred corruption.

After the Civil War, the calls for reform were made as corruption seemed out of control.

Grant’s Scandals

The Indian Ring . Grant’s Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, accepted bribes from

companies with licenses to trade on the reservations of many Native American tribes.

Belknap was impeached by the House of Representatives, but acquitted by the Senate in August 1876.

The frequency of these events led to the use of the term “Grantism,” a word synonymous with greed and corruption. Many people at the time speculated that money from these ventures was being funneled into Republican Party coffers.

These unsavory dealings led to the establishment of a Liberal Republican Party.

The true villain in these scandals was the spoils system, in which successful officeholders rewarded their supporters with political appointments. An ever-growing part of the population began to recognize the need for some type of civil service reform.

Whiskey Ring

. In the years following the Civil War, federal liquor taxes were raised to extremely high rates to help pay off the cost of the fighting. In order to avoid the high tax, many of the nation’s distillers bribed officials in the Department of the Treasury, receiving tax stamps at a fraction of their face value. Treasury Secretary Benjamin H. Bristow eventually caught wind of the dishonesty and launched a massive investigation. In the end, more than 100 officials were convicted. Grant, much to his discredit, successfully shielded his private secretary, Orville E. Babcock.

Black Friday

.In 1869, speculators Jim Fisk and Jay Gould attempted to corner the nation’s gold market. They enlisted the help of Grant’s brother-in-law, who had pledged to prevent the president from acting to ruin the scheme.

The conspirators bought huge amounts of gold and gold futures, sending the price of the commodity spiraling upward. They intended to sell everything at an enormous profit. However, Grant came to realize that his brother-in-law’s advice was harming public confidence and he ordered the immediate sale of $4 million worth of government gold. The price plummeted. Thousands of people suffered financial losses – not including Fisk and Gould, who refused to pay off their obligations.

Reform!

Garfield’s assassination by a failed office seeker sealed the reform deal.

Two years later the Pendleton Act was passed

The Pendleton Act

The spoils system was replaced with the merit system

At first it covered only 10% but by 1933 nearly 80% of the federal workforce was covered.

The merit system does have problems

Namely career bureaucrats ensuring that their own institutional and personal interests remain top dog.

Example: J. Edgar Hoover

Under Hoover the FBI was often his personal agency.

He maneuvered agents he did not like out, including successful ones.

Hoover ruled with an Iron fist

Hoover left the FBI when he died.

No President dared remove him… political costs and blackmail on Hoover’s part being two good reasons.

Hoover is a very good example of a entrenched Government bureaucrat who was virtual dictator of his agency.