The Federal Bureaucracy

I.                   Distinctiveness of the American Bureaucracy

A.    Four Political Distinctions

1.      Political authority shared between president and Congress

2.      Most federal agencies share their functions with related agencies in state and local governments

3.      The expansion of personal and civil rights during the 1960s and 1970s has helped to cause more litigation involving federal bureaus and agencies

4.      The bureaucracy is much smaller in the United States than elsewhere; whereas in Europe the government accounts for about 12 percent of all employment, in the United States public employees make up less than 3 percent.

B.     Growth of the Bureaucracy—the struggle for control of the bureaucracy began in 1789 with the very first session of Congress and the Washington administration, and continues to this day.

1.      Bureaucracy before the New Deal—although the governments in the United States in the early years from its founding were very small, Congress and the executive branch have long fought over who would be appointed to what position.

a.       Patronage—as political faction gave way to political party, appointments to various bureaucratic agencies became a way to reward political party loyalists, and thus began the “spoils system” or patronage system of government.

b.      Civil Service—the patronage system began to be called into question as people began to discover graft and corruption in their government. The assassination of James Garfield by a deranged gunman named Charles Guiteau—who had convinced himself that his relatively minor assistance to the Garfield campaign deserved the award of an ambassadorship—certainly helped propel this trend, and resulted in the passage of the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act.

c.       Growth of the Bureaucracy—was spurred first by the American Civil War, and then by the rapid industrialization of the country’s economy after the war. The growth of interstate commerce necessitated the growth of a national government along with it. The early agencies, however, did not “regulate” the economy, but rather provided research, gathered statistics, and passed out benefits. It was not until the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (at the insistence of the railroad industry) that government attempted to regulate the economy by any other method than managing the currency.

d.      Belief in limited government and states’ rights largely kept the government small—even when these beliefs were called into question, it was done in a limited way in order to maintain a great deal of political power in the states.

2.      A Change in Role—occurred as a result of the government’s response to the Great Depression and World War II. Reversing earlier decisions, the Supreme Court (under a great deal of political pressure) began to allow Congress to delegate some of its authority to make whatever decisions were deemed necessary to solve a problem or the serve “the public interest.”

a.       Federal income tax—although the income tax was instituted by the 16^th Amendment in 1913, the federal government really didn’t use it to fund its activities until World War II. Between 1940 and 1945, federal tax collection increased from $5 billion to $44 billion, and did not decrease significantly after the war ended.

b.      Modern growth of bureaucracy—with the New Deal, government began providing many more services than it had previously—and the American people generally approved of this increased service and stability. The postwar “baby boom” meant that the country grew to be much larger than it was before the New Deal, and of course also meant that if government were to continue to provide that level of service, it would need to grow as well.

c.       “Thickening” of government—to meet oversight requirements from both Congress and the Courts, new administrators had to be hired to ensure that new rules and strictures were being followed.

d.      Government bureaucracy tends to be self-perpetuating, in that government agencies, once established, tend to remain in existence. These agencies do not go out of business (generally—although the Post Office may be an exception to this rule) as firms do in the private sector.

II.                Federal Bureaucracy Today

A. Discretionary Authority—the power of the bureaucracy should not be measured by the number of employees, but by their ability to choose courses of action to make policies that are not spelled out in advance by law. If appointed officials have this kind of power, then how they use it is crucial to understanding modern government. There are four broad factors that explains the behavior of these officials:

--The manner in which they are recruited and rewarded

--Their personal attributes, such as their socioeconomic backgrounds and political attitudes.

--The nature of their jobs: roles and missions

--The way in which outside forces—political supervisors, legislators, interest groups, and journalists—influence how the bureaucracy behaves.

           

1. Recruitment and Retention—the federal civil service system was designed to recruit people on the basis of merit, not party patronage, and to retain them on the basis of performance, not political favoritism—and all of this was generally handled by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

                       

 a. Changes in the system—over the years, this system became more decentralized, and now most agencies do their own hiring, and examinations are used less frequently.

                        b. Excepted Service—is defined as being those employees hired outside the competitive service—and now make up about half of all employees in the bureaucracy. Some of these excepted employees—probably not more than 3 percent—are selected by the president for policy-making and politically sensitive posts—much like the old political patronage jobs. These new excepted service jobs fall into three broad categories:

                                    --Presidential appointees authorized by statute

                                    --“Schedule C” jobs, having confidential or policy-determining character

                                    --Non-career executive assignments

                        c. The Buddy System—in upper level positions, recruits are often within the social network of other officials, and are hired because of these connections, in what is known as a “name-request” job.

                        d. Senior Executive Service (SES)—with the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Congress recognized that many high-level positions in civil service had important policy-making responsibilities, and that the President and his cabinet should have greater discretion and flexibility in recruitment and hiring. SES was suppose to provide that flexibility, while also retaining experienced upper-level management.

                        e. Agency point-of-view—because of the job security civil service provides, many employees spend their entire work lives within a single agency, and develop an “agency point-of-view” on most matters.

            2. Personal attributes—Social class, education, and personal political beliefs all shape how bureaucrats behave.

                       

a. Upper-level bureaucrats tend to be white, better educated, and more affluent than the average American (kind of like their contemporaries in the private sector).

                        b. Bastion of “liberalism”—upper level bureaucrats also tend to have more liberal political view than does the “average” American. This is probably due to their willingness to devoted themselves to a career in government bureaucracy, where compensation tends to be lower than in the private sector, but workers are compensated by the feeling that they are helping to create a better society.

            3. Roles and Mission—People are often drawn to work within a particular government agency because of their interest in the particular realm over which the agency holds sway. Because of this, they are likely to adhere to the sense of mission or the role that a particular agency develops—as long as they sense that the agency is attempting to fulfill that mission.

            4. Outside forces—bureaucrats do not operate in a vacuum. There are at least seven external forces with which a government bureau must cope:

                        --Executive branch superiors (like cabinet officers)

                        --White House staff

                        --Congressional committees

                        --Interest groups

                        --The media

                        --The courts

                        --Rival government agencies

            At the most general level, government agencies can be divided into two main groups: those oriented toward presidential control (which tend not to have local constituencies) and those oriented toward Congressional control (which tend to have local constituencies —that is to say, decisions they make tend to have an effect locally)

                        a. Desire for autonomy—government bureaucrats, like people generally, prefer to be left alone so they can do their work as they wish. When this occurs, we say that the bureau has autonomy—but it generally can only maintain that autonomy as long as autonomy does not lead to complacency.

                        b. Agency allies—Government bureaus and agencies often develop relationships with interest groups concerned with the mission of the bureau or agency. While claims are often made that a particular agency has been “captured” by a particular interest group, it is probably closer to the truth to note that the agency is part of an issue network, in which there are a number of players.

III. Oversight

A. Congressional Oversight—Some interest groups are important to agencies because these interest groups are also important to Congress. But Congress is more important to the bureaucracy because Congress controls the budgets of these agencies.

            1. The Appropriations Committee and Legislative Committees—because an agency budget has to both be authorized and appropriated, each agency serves not one master but several, and have to remain cognizant of that fact.

            2. Congressional Investigations—as part of its oversight powers, Congress has also asserted the power to investigate various agencies to ensure that they are operating according to the way they were envisioned to operate.

B. Bureaucratic “Pathologies”—the difficulties we sometimes face in working with bureaucracies are often explained by referring to government “red tape” that prohibits government from functioning efficiently. There are also famous examples of government purchasing items from contractors that they could simply purchase in a store for much less. What gets left out in these stories are that these examples is that much of this red tape is created by Congressional oversight, and many of these “cost-overruns” are in reality accounting requirements.