Unit Four Investigating the Bureaucracy Homework

Directions: The executive branch of the United States government is a sprawling 4 million employee nationwide system of administering the laws and regulations of the United States. Sometimes there can be confusion as to what agency is responsible for what issue, as sometimes these overlap. Sometimes, it is difficult to find what agency actually does what because there are so many.

Your job in this assignment is to research the bureaucracy and answer the questions that follow. Then, you will develop reasoned conclusions about the scope and nature of the bureaucracy from these inquiries.

1. List three nearby employers that are a part of the federal bureaucracy?

2. In terms of the largest employers in the United States, where does the federal bureaucracy rank?

3. Who is the largest private employer in the United States?

4. How many people do they employ?

5. What statements can you make about the size of the federal government based on these facts?

6. You want to sell a product you created to customers overseas, which is referred to as exporting. In your opinion, what do you think should be the steps to do this?

7. How closely do the Department of Commerce’s “Introduction to Export Controls” (can be found on the class website under Unit Four Supplements, or online at https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/forms-documents/doc_view/142-eccn-pdf)

8. Which seemed the more difficult, and why do you think that is?

9. What does this tell you about the nature of dealing with a bureaucracy?

10. Where would one go to see what jobs are available as a bureaucrat?

11. What types of jobs are there available (list at least 4 in different and unrelated categories, and in differing departments and agencies)?

12. What does this information tell us about the needs of the federal government?

13. Read the article “The Realities of Bueraucracy” (attached), and using your own words, discuss the necessity of bureaucracy to our system of government.

14. What agency, and department, would I need to go through to enroll in government sponsored health insurance after age 65?

15. What agency and department would I need to go through to get a license to fly an airplane?

16. What agency and department would I need to go through to report the possibility that my neighbor is selling guns illegally?

17. What agency and department would I need to go through toassist my cousin from Ireland in becoming a U.S. citizen?

18. What agency and department would I need to go through to complain that someone would not sell me the house they had for sale because of my religion?

19. I am worried about what items I can take on a plane with me, and so I ask the person running the metal detector. They are very rude to me, and I would like to complain to their superior. What agency and department would I be contacting?

20. I am interested in travelling with a group of other farmers to visit China and exchange information about our farming techniques. What agency and department would I contact to do this?

21. I am going to visit Yellowstone National Park this summer. What agency and department would be best to contact for information?

22. A census worker is at my door asking for personal information, what department and agency should I contact to verify that they are who they say they are?

23. I am installing a windmill on ly property, and want to sell the energy it creates to an electric company in California. What department and agency regulates at what rates I can do this?

Thinking Questions

It has been said that the purpose of any bureaucracy is only to sustain and expand the bureaucracy. Based on your investigation into the federal departments and agencies of the executive branch that make up the bureaucracy, what is your reasoned opinion on the following items:

24. Is the bureaucracy overly large?

25. If it is too small, in your opinion, is there room for growth? Or, if it is too large in your opinion, what are some ways or means in which to reduce it? Or, if it is just right, explain why there seems to be so many people who think it is too large and at what point does it become too small?

26. What is regulation and how does the size of the bureaucracy affect it?

27. What is the relationship between the size of the bureaucracy and the amount of tax people pay, or the amount of debt the United States takes on?

28. What is the relationship between the size of the bureaucracy, and the amount of individual liberty to do with one’s property and person as one desires?

29. If you were President, what would you do with the bureaucracy?

The Realities of Bureaucracy

What do you think of bureaucracy? Try an experiment. Get out a piece of paper and pen or pencil and write as many adjectives you can think of that describe "bureaucracy."

Now, look over your list. Does anything stand out? Are the adjectives you wrote generally negative? Are they ALL negative? Or did you include some positive adjectives that describe bureaucracy? If you are like most Americans, your list is entirely or almost entirely negative. When forced to stop and think about positive adjectives, people can readily offer a few, but they do not generally think of them on their own without being prompted to do so.

Why are people so naturally negative about bureaucracy? No doubt, the negativism is, at least in part, due to bad experiences people have had with a bureaucratic agency or office. However, public opinion polls consistently suggest that most people are satisfied with current governmental programs. Moreover, most people are generally satisfied with their encounters with bureaucrats and bureaucratic agencies. Overall satisfaction with government programs, and bureaucracy in particular, suggests that much of the hostility toward bureaucracy is the product of general and abstract antigovernment sentiments. There is no easy way to reconcile this apparent contradiction. Indeed, public opinion about the bureaucracy (and government in general) is often "varied, contradictory, ambiguous, [and] ephemeral."1

One of the most perplexing realities for bureaucracies, bureaucrats and their supporters, then, is that Americans consistently send mixed messages to the Congress about what they want out of the bureaucracy. The result is that Executive Branch agencies and their employees are often pulled, pushed and prodded by different forces in different directions. As will be discussed in the next section ("The Bureaucratic Dilemma"), this is one of the most serious obstacles to effective bureaucratic implementation of public policies and programs.

The Nature of Bureaucracy

When the national government establishes policies and creates programs, bureaucracy becomes necessary to see that those policies and programs become reality. For example, when the Congress passes clean air legislation, it must establish an agency to monitor and ensure compliance with the standards it sets. When it creates farmer assistance programs, a bureaucracy is required to oversee and administer the program.

Bureaucrats, the nature of the job they do, stand between the lawmakers who create public policy and public programs and the people. They are uniquely positioned, then, to see both sides of the picture, the political side in Washington and the practical side in Dubuque, Phoenix or any number of other localities. However, because they are often given specific and narrow guidelines for the implementation of the programs the Congress creates, bureaucrats often lead frustrating lives, unable to exercise the discretion they and the beneficiaries of government programs would like to. On the other hand, when bureaucrats are given too much discretion, the Congress and the public often complain that the bureaucracy has become a law unto itself. (Photo at Right: Home of the Federal Bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. Middle-Left Building: Department of Agriculture, Middle-Right Building (on the River): Bureau of Engraving and Printing).

Simply put, bureaucracy is the means toward a host of public and social policy ends. As such, many people believe the bureaucracy is a "necessary evil," an unfortunate requirement in the implementation of policies aimed at promoting the "general welfare" of the nation. Another perhaps more accurate view suggests that bureaucracy, in itself, is benign--the policies it implements are what should be judged as either "good" or "bad" by the people and their leaders. The bureaucracy has neither the power to create laws or to ignore them. It must simply enact what laws the Congress and President make.

America's Bureaucracy

In the United States of America, there are four different kinds of bureaucracies: departments, independent agencies, independent regulatory commissions and government corporations. While departments were originally intended to be the largest and most important of government bureaucracies, many independent agencies are larger, in terms of both staffs and budgets, than many departments (see the table below).

Departments

There are fourteen Executive Branch "Birthdates" of Executive Branch departments, the heads of which are all Departments members of the President's Cabinet (see State 1789 "Presidential Leadership"). The largest departments are the Department of Defense Treasury 1789 and the Department of Veteran Affairs. Each Defense (originally War & Navy) 1789 so-called Cabinet-level department oversees a Interior 1849 broad area of national policy and programs. The Department of Treasury, which includes Agriculture 1862 the Internal Revenue Service, is charged with Justice (Attorney General est. 1870 collecting, spending, and accounting for the 1789) government's money. The Justice Commerce 1903 Department, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is headed by the Labor 1913 Attorney General, enforces national laws and Health & Human Services 1953 prosecutes those who violate them. The Housing & Urban Development 1965 newest department, the Department of Homeland Security, was established in 2002. Transportation 1966 Energy 1977 Independent Agencies Education 1979 Most departments have several agencies and Veterans Affairs 1989 offices within them. There are, however, Homeland Security 2002 several Executive Branch agencies that are independent, unattached to any department. These agencies are generally smaller than departments, but many departments were agencies before they were elevated to department status. They are independent in that they are not attached to an Executive Branch department-- they remain accountable to the Congress and the President. Examples of independent agencies include the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Social Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Some independent agencies, such as the Office of Personnel Management, the General Accounting Office and the Government Services Administration, exist solely to oversee the operations of the national government, its departments and other agencies.

Independent Regulatory Commissions

Several independent regulatory boards and commissions have been created by the Congress. They are purposely insulated from Presidential influence to keep them as free from political and partisan influences as possible. Their independence rests largely on the inability of the President or the Congress to remove their appointed heads unless they are guilty of gross inefficiency, neglecting their duties or violating the law. These boards and commissions include the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the stock markets, the Federal Reserve Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. Government Corporations

The most independent of bureaucracies are government corporations. These operate much more freely of federal government regulations and oversight, but remain limited in important ways because of their public nature. One of the most important differences between government corporations and other departments and agencies is that government corporations are encouraged, even expected, to earn money. These organizations include the U.S. Postal Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AMTRAK and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

How Big is the Bureaucracy? National Government Employees % changed By Branch, Department & 2005 from 1990- Agency Numbers 2005 Legislative Branch Total -19.2 30,303 Judicial Branch Total 42.7 33,690 Executive Branch Total -13.8 2,644,764 Executive Office of the President 0.3 1,736 Executive Department -18.2 1,689,914 State Department 33.7 33,808 Treasury Department -28.0 114,194 Defense Department -35.1 671,791 Justice Department 25.2 105,103 Interior Department -5.3 73,599 Agriculture Department -14.4 104,989 Commerce Department -44.3 38.927 Labor Department -12.0 15,599 Health & Human Services -50.8 60,944 Housing & Urban Development -25.8 10,086 Transportation Department -16.9 55,975 Energy Department -15.1 15,050 Education Department -7.2 4,429 Veterans Affairs Department -4.8 236,363 The Executive Branch and the Homeland Security n/a 149,977 Office of the President have grown significantly since SELECTED INDEPENDENT AGENCIES George Washington first took Socal Security Administration n/a 65,861 office in 1789. In fact, Washington had no White U.S. Postal Service -6.0 767,972 House staff to speak of. Instead of relying on intermediaries to NASA -23.2 19,105 carry his messages for him, he Board of Govenors Federal Reserve 21.4 1,851 dealt personally with the System Congress and the Courts. Fed. Emergency Management 5.0 2,213 Thomas Jefferson employed a Agency staff of two--a messenger and a secretary. By 1900, the White Environmental Protection Agency 4.9 17.964 House staff had grown to a

SOURCE: U.S. Office of Personnel Management dozen. The explosion of activity in the White House during Franklin Roosevelt's administration made it necessary to hire additional staff and the number of people working for the President has steadily increased since that time. The Executive Office of the President now employs more than five hundred people.

The original presidential "Cabinet" consisted of the Secretaries of State, War and Treasury. Since that time, eleven additional cabinet-level departments have been created: the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education and Veterans Affairs. Each of these departments has several sub-agencies and officers. These, together with dozens of other independent agencies and commissions, comprise the federal bureaucracy.

In 2005, the national government employed 2,7 million people. Nearly all of these were Executive Branch employees--only 64,000 of the nearly three million worked for the Legislative and Judicial Branches. By far the largest Executive Department is the Department of Defense with about 670,000 employees. The magnitude and importance of national defense is even further underscored by the fact that the next largest department is the Department of Veterans Affairs with nearly 236,000 employees. Indeed, beyond its three million civilian employees, the national government employs an additional 1.1 million active duty military personnel.

Besides national defense, the national government employs 114,000 in the Department of Treasury, 105,000 in the Department of Justice and 104,000 in the Department of Agriculture. There are also several independent agencies, not attached to an Executive Branch department, with sizable employment rolls. The largest of these is the U.S. Postal Service with more than 770,000 employees. The Social Security Administration employs 66,000 people, while NASA employs nearly 20,000 and the Environmental Protection Agency employs 18,000. See the table on the right for a breakdown of departments, agencies and the number of people employed by each.

In addition to the nearly four million people employed by the national government (including national defense), the more than 87,000 state, county, city and special district governments across this nation employ an additional 17 million people. More than half of these are employed in elementary, secondary and higher education. Other significant levels of employment at the state and local level are for police and fire protection (nearly 1.5 million), health care (more than 1.5 million), and justice and corrections (about one million). Other state and local employees provide a variety of services, such as libraries, parks and public utilities.

NOTES 1. Larry Hill. "Taking Bureaucracy Seriously," in The State of Public Bureaucracy, Larry B. Hill, ed. (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992), 23.