How many departments are represented in the cabinet? Which department is the newest one?

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Read the first half of Chapter 11 (pp. 261-274) and do a written assignment.

Some questions to keep in mind as you read:

How many departments are represented in the cabinet?  Which department is the newest one?

What are the definitions of the following terms or acronyms:  OMB, NSC, "going native"?

Why has policy-making power shifted to the bureaucracy?

What are the characteristics of bureaucracy according to Weber?

What are the sources if bureaucratic power?

Consider the following scenario.  Against all odds, Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic Party nomination for president and then goes on to win the general election in the fall. He has an ambitious agenda on dealing with income and wealth inequality ( seehttp://berniesanders.com/issues/income-and-wealth-inequality/  To achieve this ambitious agenda, he will need to get legislation passed in Congress and then to direct the relevant bureaucracies. As an advisor to the president-elect, what two or three important things can you say about bureaucratic power that it will be important for the president-elect Sanders to hear so that he can keep his expectations of change realistic? Be sure to integrate what you have learned from the relevant reading into your advice.

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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY 267 National Security Council Official NSC website. www whitehouse.gov/ administration/ The National Security Council (NSC) resembles an inner cabinet; the President is chair, and the vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and secretary of the treasury are participating members. The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are advisors to the NSC. A special assistant to the president for national security affairs heads the NSC staff. The poses of the council are to advise the president on security policy and to coordinate the foreign, military, and domestic policies. eop/nsc/ pur- OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest agency in the EOP. Its function is to prepare the budget of the United States for the president to submit to Congress. The federal government cannot spend money without appropriations by Congress, and all requests for congressional appropriations must clear the OMB first, a requirement that gives the OMB great power over the executive branch. Because all agencies request more money than they can receive, the OMB has pri- mary responsibility for reviewing, reducing, and approving estimates submitted by departments and agencies (subject to appeal to the president). It also continuously scrutinizes the organization and operations of executive agencies to recommend changes promoting efficiency and economy. Like members of the White House staff, the top officials of the OMB are responsible solely to the president; thus, they must reflect the president's goals and priorities in their decision making. PRESIDENTIAL CONTROL OF THE BUREAUCRACY The president's formal powers over the bureaucracy center on appointments, reor- ganization, and the budget they derive from the Constitution. We should, however, consider the real limitations on these powers (see Focus: Bureaucratic Maneuvers). The president has formal constitutional authority over the federal bureaucracy, in that Article II, Section 2, gives presidents the power to "require the Opinion, in writing, of the principle Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices.” The Constitution also gives presidents formal power to appoint (with Senate confirmation) all secretaries, assistant secretaries, undersecretaries, and deputy secretaries and most bureau chiefs in the federal government. The president also has the power to reorganize the federal bureaucracy, subject to congressional veto. And, of course, the president exercises formal control over the budget. APPOINTMENTS Although the federal bureaucracy consists of 2.8 million civilian employees, direct presidential control is limited, as the president actually appoints only about 2,500 people. Of these, approximately 600 are policy-making positions; the rest are sub- ordinate positions often used by presidents for patronage. Many patronage posi- tions go to professional bureaucrats by default because a president cannot find 268 CHAPTER 11 bureaucrats and become their captives instead of taking control. career Federal Depart- ments and Agencies Most federal departments can be accessed directly by using their initials followed by.gov, for example the Federal Bureau of Investigation- www.fbi.gov. A few other domains are sometimes used, for example, Department of Defense-www .defenselink.mil. expense bureaucrats in the agencies, who have the knowledge, skills, and experience to con qualified political appointees. Political appointees are often baffled by the career Political heads sometimes "go native”; they yield to the pressure of these tinue existing programs with little or no supervision from their nominal chiefs. Inasmuch as a majority of bureaucrats are career civil servants, exercising pol- icy control over the bureaucracy is particularly difficult for a president after the other party has held the White House a long time. Some presidents have turned to House staff and placed control of major programs in their hands, at the creative solutions. Richard Nixon increased the power of his immediate White icy areas; some appointments did not require Senate confirmation. Obama's of the cabinet departments.' Barack Obama gave “czars” oversight of specific pol- troversial “Green Jobs” czar, an unconfirmable former communist named Van icy positions apart from the bureaucracy is clearly at the heart of presidential Jones, resigned in 2009. Still, the practice of placing White House figures into pol- Several recent presidents have dealt with the power of bureaucracy by bringing bureaucracy in part because he himself had held a variety of bureaucratic posts dur- in people with experience. George H. W. Bush experienced less conflict with the ing his career-U.N. ambassador, CIA director, and ambassador to the People's Republic of China. The Washington bureaucracy was generally supportive of Bill attempts to exercise control over the bureaucratic process.6 USA Jobs You, too, can join the bureaucracy! This website is the official source for federal employ- ment information. www.usajobs.gov Clinton's policy activism, with its initial promise of expanded governmental services and bureaucratic budgets. The only serious bureaucratic opposition Clinton encoun tered arose in the 1996 battle with the Department of Health and Human Services over welfare reform and his “reinventing government” program, which reduced the federal payroll substantially and helped streamline some processes such as pur- chasing. This angered the bureaucracy, even as it helped balance the government's budget. George W. Bush's cabinet appointees were more experienced in government affairs than those of previous administrations. Vice President Richard Cheney, Sec- retary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, among others, all served in high positions in previous administrations. Their experience gave them greater knowledge and power over the Washington bureaucracy than top political elites in previous administrations, Barack Obama followed this model with a cabinet heavy in governmental, if not bureaucratic , experience, such as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's 20 years in Washington, or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 15 years. EORGANIZATION reor as an Presidents can choose to reorganize the bureaucracy to reflect their priorities. How Kennedy created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) a ganizations are subject to legislative veto. For example, in the 1960s, President Carter created the Department of Education to fulfill his campaign pledge to e independent agency to carry out his commitment to a space program. President size educational matters (and to please a maior campaign supporter, the teachers' empha- THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY 263 explanation is that the increasing complexity and sophistication of technology require technical experts, or technocrats, to actually carry out the intent of elected officials. No single bureaucrat can master the complex activities of even a single large gov- ernmental agency--from budgeting, purchasing, personnel, accounting, planning, communication, and organization to the complexities of nuclear plants, energy transmission, the tax code, or information technology. Each bureaucrat has relatively little knowledge of overall policy. But each person's narrow expertise, when com- bined with that of thousands of other bureaucrats, creates an organized base of power that political leaders find difficult to control. This elite is diffuse, but no less powerful. SHIFTS IN RESPONSIBILITY Another reason policy-making has shifted to the bureaucracy is that Congress and the president deliberately pass vague and ambiguous laws, largely for symbolic rea- sons—to protect the environment, ensure occupational safety, guarantee flight safety, prevent unfair interstate charges, guarantee equal employment opportunity, and so on. Bureaucrats must give meaning to symbolic measures; their role is to use the authority of these symbolic laws to decide what actually will be done. Frequently, Congress and the president do not want to take public responsibility for unpopular policies. They find it easier to blame the bureaucrats and claim unpopular policies are a product of an ungovernable Washington bureaucracy. This explanation allows elected officials to impose regulations without accepting responsibility for them. BUREAUCRATIC EXPANSIONISM The bureaucracy itself is now sufficiently powerful to have its own laws passed- laws that allow agencies to expand in size, acquire more authority, and obtain more money. Bureaucracy has become its own source of power. Political scientist James Q. Wilson commented on “the great, almost overpowering, importance of the existing government and professional groups in shaping policy": I am impressed by the extent to which policy making is dominated by the representa- tives of those bureaucracies and professions having a material stake in the management and funding of the intended policy and by those political staffs who see in a new pro- gram a chance for publicity, advancement, and a good reputation for their superiors.? GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE UNIONS Government employees are largely unionized. They enjoy average pay ($78,500) well above the national average, generous defined benefit pensions, and strong employment rights that make them difficult to fire. Three unions represent the bulk of federal workers: the American Federation of Government Employees (about 600,000 members), the National Treasury Employee Union (about 150,000 members), and the National Federation of Federal Employees (just about 100,000 members). Federal workers got the right to organize in 1912 with the Lloyd- LaFollette Act. Further union rights came in the 1930s, although Franklin Roose- velt wrote in 1937 that “government employees should realize that the process of IN BRIEF PRESIDENTIAL CONTROL THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY 271 marily from: Presidential control over the bureaucracy derives pri- • Presidential power over appointments to the most, however, requiring Senate approval. White House, Cabinet, and other high offices, Presidential power over reorganization and the Presidential power over budget recommenda- tions to Congress. Formal Constitutional authority to "require the Opinion, in writing, of the principle Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices” (Article II, Section 2). gressional approval. creation of new bureaucracies, subject to con- 2013; FY 2014 ends September 30, 2014.) The OMB considers budget requests by all executive departments and agencies, adjusting them to fit the president's overall policy goals. It prepares the Budget of the United States Government for the presi- dent to submit to Congress. Table 11.1 summarizes the steps in the overall sched- ule for budgetary preparation. CONGRESSIONAL CONSIDERATION spend its money: “No The Constitution gives Congress authority to decide how the government should money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law” (Article I, Section 9). The president's budget is sent initially to the House and Senate budget committees, whose job it is to draft a budget resolution for Congress, setting future target goals for appropriations in various areas. The House and Senate budget committees rely on their own bureau- cracy, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), to review the recommendations made by the president and the OMB. Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolu- tion by late spring. The resolution should guide the House and Senate appropria- tions committees and their subcommittees in writing the appropriations acts. There are usually 13 separate appropriations acts each year. Each one covers a broad area of government-for example, defense, social programs, education, com- merce, justice, state, and judiciary. These appropriations bills must pass both the House and the Senate in identical form, just as any other legislation must. All the acts are supposed to be passed before the start of the fiscal year, October 1. These procedures were mandated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. However, Congress rarely follows its own timetable or procedures. The common goal of the congressional budget procedures, the House and Senate budget committees, and the CBO is to allow Congress to consider the budget in its entirety rather than in separate segments. But after the budget resolution has been passed, the 13 separate appropriations bills begin their tortuous journeys through specialized appropriations subcommittees. Agency and department leaders from the administration are frequently called to testify before these subcommittees to defend the president's request. Lobbying activity is heavy in these subcommittees. Health, Education, and Welfare, bitterly opposed it. President Reagan promised in Department of Homeland Security This DHS website shows the many agencies that were consolidated THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY 269 unions), even though the department's parent organization, the Department of his 1980 campaign to eliminate the Department of Education (for essentially the same reason that Carter created it) as well as the Department of Energy. However, nothing arouses the fighting instincts of bureaucrats as much as the rumor of reorganization. Reagan was eventually forced to drop his plans to elimi- nate the two departments. Instead, he ended his administration by creating a new cabinet-level department--the Department of Veterans Affairs-in response to demands for greater status and attention by veterans' interests. To reassure the public of the government's efforts to prevent further terrorist attacks after September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush first created an Office of Homeland Security inside the EOP, with high-profile Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge as its first director. Continued concern for security forced Bush to pro- pose a more thorough reorganization of the executive branch. He proposed and Congress created a new Department of Homeland Security, which would not only coordinate domestic and international antiterrorist efforts but also exercise direct responsibility over 22 agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. under DHS. www .dhs.gov/xabout/ history/editorial_ 0133.shtm THE BUDGET The president exercises budgetary power over the bureaucracy through the OMB. Thus, the OMB director must be a trusted ally of the president, and the department must support the president's programs and priorities if presidential control over the bureaucracy is to be effective. But even the OMB must accept the budgetary base of each department (the previous year's budget, adjusted for inflation) and engage in bud- geting that provides increases based on previous years' requests, known as “incremen- tal” budgeting. Despite its own expertise, the OMB rarely challenges the budgetary base of agencies but instead concentrates its attention on requested increases. Any agency that feels shortchanged in the president's budget can leak the fact to its supporting interest groups and congressional subcommittee. Any resulting public outcry may force the president to restore the agency's funds. Or Congress can appro- priate money not requested by the president. The president may go along with the increased expenditures simply to avoid another confrontation with Congress. THE BUDGET MAZE The budget is the most important policy statement of any government. The expendi- ture side of the budget shows who gets what from government, and the revenue side shows who pays the costs. The budget lies at the heart of the policy-making process. THE PRESIDENTIAL BUDGET The president is responsible for submitting the annual federal budget, with esti- mates of revenue and recommendations for expenditures, to Congress. Congress controls the purse strings; no federal funds may be spent without congressional
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Running Head: BUREAUCRATIC POWER

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BUREAUCRATIC POWER
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BUREAUCRATIC POWER

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Bureaucratic power is key to putting government policies into practice. Therefore.
Federal bureaucracy has a great effect on policy making. Bernie Sanders, as a president, must
understand how bureaucratic power works to ensure that his ambitious agenda on dealing with
income and wealth inequa...


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