The Bureaucracy

“Man creates problems. Government and bureaucrats magnify them 100 times.”

—George Van Valkenburg

The ‘Long and Unacceptable’ Wait for a Veterans’ Benefit

By Susan SeligerThe New York Times, May 15, 2013

“…each man felt, as he tightened his saber belt, that he was summoned to ride to death.”

— Capt. Henry C. Parsons, 1st Vermont

Cavalry

Farnsworth’s Charge

Brigadier General Elon J. Farnsworth

Lt. Perley C.J. Cheney1st Vermont Cavalry

Gettysburg

July 3,18635:27 PM

“The bullet struck in the small of my back, one and one-half inches from the spine above the hip, below the ribs and came into my watch fob pocket, putting in an hole ten inches through my body, that took six months to heal.”

1888

$15 per month…

The equivalent of about $350 today.

1908

1888

1912

Perley C.J. Cheney

Types of Bureaucratic Agencies

Cabinet departmentsRegulatory commissionsGovernment corporationsIndependent executive agencies Foundations

The Department of Homeland Security

Problems of Public Administration

Democratic participation Constitutional limitation

Bureaucratic PathologiesNew Hampshire’s dirt-eating childrenMother Theresa’s quest to build a homeless shelter in New York City9/11 loans administered through the Small Business Administration (SBA)Unused mobile homes following Hurricane Katrina

Bush Campaign Ad on Gore’s

Prescription Drug Plan

Do bureaucrats deserve our wrath?

As Lynch points out, they are not all “indifferent paper pushers.” They are police officers, firefighters, nurses, teachers, and engineers.

Fixing Bureaucracy

Under the Clinton Administration in the 1990s, The National Partnership for Reinventing Government sought to make government “work better” and “cost less” for its customers, the American people.