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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