[Music] welcome to joes productions today we're taking a look at the topic of the federal bureaucracy no matter which book you're using for AP government or regular government we got you covered so the government bureaucracy is an organization of non elected government officials who fulfill the functions of their particular agency they make sure the rules and laws are followed in the various government agencies and today a bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution some examples of federal meat inspectors the VA and the US Post Office their job is to carry out the responsibilities of the federal government what this means is they need to implement laws passed by Congress and executive orders of the President and this includes oversight and enforcement of laws they develop and enforce rules and regulations and finally they administer various government programs so for example they send out Social Security benefits would be another job of the federal bureaucracy these various objectives is performed by a variety of people and you could see the number of employees different agencies have but the objective of the bureaucracy is performed by not only agencies but Commission's departments and government corporations and we'll look at those in just a moment so what about the bureaucrats the people who work for the bureaucracy there are some myths and realities you need to keep in mind and one thing people like to talk about is that Americans dislike bureaucrats citizens and elected officials dislike faceless bureaucracies and very often you will hear criticisms that there's too much red tape bureaucracies can be ineffective and inefficient and in the abstract people do like to complain about bureaucracies but it's important to remember a bureaucracy is just the way of organizing a large organization and a majority of citizens report favorable interactions with various bureaucratic agencies but if you take a look you'll see agencies like the Veterans Administration the EPA the Justice Department they tend to have higher favorability ratings then Congress does or even the president very often does another common myth is that bureaucracies are increasing and this is true to some degree the Federal Bureau see is shrinking but state and local bureaucracies have grown the federal government has shifted more responsibilities to the state so you see the state and local bureaucracy growing but this is not the case at the federal level and another common myth is that bureaucrats work in DC and DC is the heart of our federal government but it is also true that most bureaucrats work at the state or local level only about one in seven bureaucrats work in DC most are working in local offices for the Postal Service the Social Security Administration the VA and other agencies since bureaucrats are not elected officials they're not very visible to the public there's a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation around them but the truth is much more complex than is typically presented what about civil servants how do you become a bureaucrat a civil servant working for the government well there is a distinction you need to know about one is patronage which is a system in which hiring and promotions are based upon political factors so who you know not necessarily what you know the other system is merit-based and this is a system in which hiring and promotions are based on skill and talent it's important to know those two terms because back in the day we had something called the patronage system or sometimes referred to as the spoil system jobs were handed out government jobs were handed out not based upon the skills or what you knew but who you knew sometimes this is known as the spoil system but basically the winning candidate would give out jobs to their supporters needless to say this was notoriously corrupt and inefficient and so you slowly get the development of something called the civil service system where people have to pass exam or in some cases exams and promotions are based upon merit and performance and one of the big turning points in American history is the passage of the Pendleton act in 1883 which created the federal civil service civil servants should be nonpartisan they should be promoted based upon merit introduced entrance exams for positions and promotions once again are going to be based upon skills and not political connections so the Pendleton act was moving away from the patronage system another reform you should know about is the Hatch Act 19:39 it prohibits civil servants from engaging in political activities so government employees can vote in things like that but federal law says you can't be mixed up in partisan politics while you are serving in the capacity and your capacity of government work you've got to keeping nonpartisan civil service and these reforms are important because a merit-based professional civil service helped the effectiveness of the bureaucracy by promoting professionalism specialization and neutrality which creates a more efficient and fair system now patronage jobs have not completely disappeared newly elected presidents fill thousands of executive positions these are a political appointees in an ideal world all appointments would be filled with talented skilled peoples but oftentimes presidents will hook up people with jobs that are loyal and not necessarily because they're competent very often ambassadors are selected because of their campaign contributions or because of their support during the election and there have been a number of cabinet secretaries of questionable merit appointed to those positions more on those in just a moment all in all though civil servants are relatively protected from being fired for political reasons and often outlast political appointees and elected officials so today we do have a professional civil service that in theory seeks to serve the public good and not get involved in all the partisan bickering let's take a quick look at the organization of the federal bureaucracy there are four types of bureaucratic federal agencies we're going to talk about each one of these the first are the various cabinet departments remember from a previous video that there are 15 different departments that have been established over time and each cabinet has their own purpose their own policy area their own budget and staff and the cabinet is part of the executive department a secretary of each department is appointed by the president and they need to be confirmed by the Senate and even within each cabinet you have bureaus within the department so for example in the Department of Health and Human Services you also have the Food and Drug Administration you also have the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the Department of Justice you also have the FBI so within each department you have different sub agencies doing different types of bureaucratic work Nexus independent regulatory commissions their job is to make and enforce the rules in the public interests they regulate different aspects of the economy and society not only do they make rules but they can also punish violations of the rules with fines each particular commission is headed by a chairperson and they're governed by a group of commissioners who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate important distinction about this group is commissioners serve fixed terms and can't be easily fired by the President and this is to ensure they act in the public interest and it shelters them from politics that can be fired with a cause but they're unique in that they're not serving at the pleasure of the president as is the case with the various cabinet secretaries oftentimes these commissions will be known as an alphabet soup of government agencies there's so many different agencies under this category you have the SCC in the Federal Communications Commission which regulates TV and radio programming you have the Securities and Exchange Commission which regulates the stock market and numerous other examples the next type of bureaucratic federal agency is government corporations their job is to provide services to citizens that could be dealt with by the private sector some examples of this the TVA during the New Deal which provided electricity to rural areas the private sector had neglected this region because it did not see it as profitable to extend services to this poor rural area so in 1933 under the New Deal the government built dams and provided electricity to this region you see on the map another example of a government corporation is the US Postal Service so next time you see your mailman or mail a woman you could say hey you're part of the bureaucracy and they are facing competition from private companies such as FedEx and UPS but oftentimes the private sector does not find it profitable to provide postal service to poor rural areas so the government has stepped in and the fourth type of bureaucratic federal agency is independent executive agency and basically this is any agency that is not one of the above and so examples of independent executive agencies include the mental protection agency NASA and the CIA they're all federal bureaucracies that are considered independent executive agencies a very important thing you should know about is the idea of bureaucracies as implementers they are actually implementing policy and you all should know Congress passes the laws and the president ensures the laws are faithfully executed but but what most people don't know is the bureaucracy implement the policies by working out the details laws are typically vague Congress doesn't spell out all the details and working out the details takes lots of time lots of work and usually lots of money so it is the bureaucracy that handles the routines of government that's why they're so important everything from delivering the mail collecting the taxes devising the rules on environmental issues and so on that's what the bureaucracy does in order to implement policy a couple things usually happen a new agency sometimes has created so in 2002 we had the Department of Homeland Security was created for the first time or they can assign responsibilities to an existing agency the bureaucracy will oftentimes develop the rules and guidelines and this is very important they develop guidelines for implementation of policy and as a result or a part of the policy-making process during this process they also coordinate resources to ensure successful implementation and we will see in a few slides it is the job of Congress the president and the bureaucracy to make sure the policy goals are being achieved and the rules and guidelines are being followed in this implementation make sure you know about discretionary authority this is the ability of an agency to choose a course of action and set policies so agencies can decide how they go about executing their task when Congress is making the laws they don't draft how to deal with every possible situation or problem so they defer to the bureaucracy that has the expertise to decide the best path forward now this is how the system is supposed to work but implementation can be difficult there's a lot of things that can go wrong there's a lot of clarity very often Congress can pass vague laws or laws with fusing or contradictory objectives making the job of the bureaucracy nearly impossible very often you'll deal with a lack of resources there's very often not enough money so programs like Head Start don't have enough funds to cover all the children that are eligible for their services or a lack of personnel not enough people doing the work so for instance in the Social Security office or the VA they take extended periods of time because there's a lack of people processing claims mailing out benefits and so on another problem with implementation can be a lack of authority an example of this is the FDA which regulates the nation's food and drugs they rely on companies to provide test results for products and very often they can't get the company documents to see if the tests the companies are submitting are authentic and they don't have the authority to get those documents so it makes it very difficult for the FDA to fulfill their mission another difficulty is standard operating procedures these are rules to ensure that the same service is provided to everyone and while this may sound fantastic this can make bureaucracies very inflexible and inefficient this is where people oftentimes criticize the red tape you have to jump through all these hoops just to get something done that could be done a lot quicker and finally fragmentation fragmentation of responsibilities can lead to poor implementation of policies there's too many agencies doing the same work countless number of agencies dealing with welfare or homeland security and oftentimes they don't communicate effectively with one another and so things don't get done because there is a lack of cooperation and coordination and sometimes even trust between different government agencies for those of you in AP gov it's very important you know that discretionary and rulemaking authority to implement policy are given to bureaucratic departments agencies and commissions such as the Department of Homeland Security the Department of Transportation Department of Veterans Affairs the Department of Education the Environmental Protection Agency the Federal Elections Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission these are all different beer kradic agencies and they all have the ability to decide how to execute their tasks of rulemaking implementation of various policies so make sure you know some examples of this use of discretionary authority two important concepts you should know about privatization and bureaucracies as regulators there has been a move towards reinventing the government which began in the 1980s this led to D centralizing Authority or what we've talked about in previous videos devolution the power is shifting from the federal government to the states and many proponents of these ideas thought it would be best if we made the government more like the private sector this would create more opportunity for innovation performance incentives and things would work out a lot better since the 80s you have seen more jobs previously done by public employees transferred to the private sector and the idea was the use of private contractors to do jobs previously done by government workers would save money because these private contractors would compete with one another and so politicians very often will speak about cutting the bureaucracy but the counter to that is you have more and more people working for the government in the private sector while this privatization did solve some problems problems do remain many contracts are no-bid so there is no competition oftentimes they are being awarded to people who are friends of politicians or those who are loyal and private companies are exactly that their private and so the inner workings of those companies are shielded from scrutiny because people don't know what's going on internally so there's a lot less accountability potentially next is bureaucracies as regulators regulation is one of the most important jobs and one of the most controversial roles of bureaucracies most would argue we need some regulations but the question is how much regulation is appropriate and very often those being regulated are not huge fans of these regulations so regulation becomes very controversial regardless the US has a free enterprise system but it is regulated remember back day this was not the case we had lazy fair capitalism where the federal government really didn't regulate at all and there were very few regulations coming from state and local governments obviously as a result of this lays a fair approach he had all sorts of environmental worker safety problems and you start getting some reforms the first major one is the Interstate Commerce Commission which is created in 1887 which basically established the federal regulation of railroad services is basically farmers were getting gouged by the railroad industry and this is one of the first major attempts by the federal government to regulate the economy there has been a tremendous growth of regulation since you had the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 you had the Progressive Era and the New Deal and a host of other moments in American history where regulations were established enforcement is largely dependent on agency and bureaucratic discretion also who's in charge in Congress and the presidency you know where they're gonna focus their attention where they're gonna get the funding starting in the 70s and 80s you see some criticisms of this growing federal bureaucracy and government regulation Reagan famously said government is the problem and there's critiques of these regulations such as they're overly complicated they slow down innovation with red tape it leads to increase prices which consumers have to pay higher prices and it hurts American competition since other countries have weaker regulations crappy working conditions lack of environmental protections they don't have to follow these rules so they're able to have an advantage over American companies so since the 80s we've had deregulation we've had privatization but deregulation and weak enforcement of regulations has created problems and some examples have been various environmental problems the Flint water crisis various oil spills and the economic collapse and housing and the financial industries as banks got a little bit greedy and things started getting a little bit out of control it is important you know that there are systems in place for controlling the bureaucracy as we've seen that bureaucracy has a very important job they have tremendous discretion and implementing laws and they are unelected how do we make sure everything is running appropriately and we do that because there ways the different government branches can hold the bureaucracy accountable for instance presidents try to control the bureaucracy in the following ways remember they appoint agency heads who share their policy ideas and ideology so they can appoint people that have the same kind of beliefs about regulations or the environment that they do and they can put them in the position to head those different bureaucratic organizations in the case of the cabinet that can also remove those heads if they feel they're not effectively doing their job presidents can also issue executive orders which have the force of law so bypassing the bureaucracy and telling them what needs to be done another way of control is the budget presidents can threaten to cut or increase funding in their budget proposal now ultimately Congress decides this but the president can use the bully pulpit to talk about funding or cuts to funding and another method of control is reorganizing the agencies shifting personnel resources and so on Congress also tries to control the bureaucracy and this is a very interesting relationship because remember the bureaucracy provides services to constituents and congressional leaders don't want complaints to come in when the bureaucracy is not doing their job effectively as such Congress uses its formal and informal powers to hold the bureaucracy accountable and Congress has various methods to ensure that legislation is implemented as intended for instance they can influence the appointments of agency heads so they can reject presidential appointments to various bureaucratic agencies they got the votes in the Senate Congress does have the power of the purse the budget during the appropriations process that can limit or expand funds as a way of controlling the bureaucracy an important formal power spelled out in the Constitution is the right to hold Oversight Committee hearings Congress can investigate bureaucratic activities that can call different leaders to Congress to testify as a means of accountability and another method of control is to create more detailed legislation this limits agency discretion if things are spelled out more explicitly the federal courts can also hold the bureaucracy accountable and the most obvious way is they can rule the supreme court can rule a law or an executive or unconstitutional and that would kill it right there so the courts Congress and the president all have means to hold the bureaucracy accountable so make sure you know about it when talking about bureaucratic accountability and control it's important you know about these two terms one is the Iron Triangle and this is the relationship between a regulated industries interest group so in the example above we have farmers and agricultural interests the regulating agency in other words the bureaucracy so in this case you have the federal Department of Agriculture and the committees in Congress that make policy in that area so any House and Senate agricultural committee this forms what is known as the Iron Triangle these three different groups are mutually dependent on one another for not only information services but also policymaking they forge a very strong relationship over a long period of time this is different than an issue network which you can see various bureaucratic agencies are a part of this consists of a informal group of interest groups congressional staff the media think tanks and various others who are drawn to an issue and try to shape government policy so bureaucratic agencies play a role not only in iron triangles but also issue networks now issue networks groups are you nodding around a common issue but they may have disagreements amongst one another but the important thing about issue networks is the increased participation in bureaucratic policymaking and they hope to create change within the government bureaucracy so different groups are trying to influence this process this policy-making process and the bureaucracy once again is a part of that process some final things to help in your understanding of bureaucracies you should know bureaucracies make policy they don't just carry out orders from Congress or the president they are active in the policy-making process they are part of the unelected policy-making institutions there are two one are the courts the other is the bureaucracy and just as we couldn't elect all the judges we definitely can't let countless number of bureaucrats and although they're not elected they still represent citizens and are supposed to respond to public interest there is an ongoing debate about is there too government but as we have seen over the last 40 years the federal bureaucracy has shrunk as we've had deregulation and devolution moving power from the federal government to the states but that has led to a growth of both state and local bureaucracies and while many people would like the federal government bureaucracy to shrink even more it's important to understand that there's a wide variety of social and economic problems we look toward the bureaucracy to solve and very often people have very favorable interactions with these various agencies and very often they want them to do more on issues they care about while at the same time others would like to decrease government spending and shrink the size and power and scope of the federal government so the debate continues what you shouldn't debate though is where to go when you need some AAP government or aid push help there is there's the website if you haven't already done so make sure you subscribe tell a friend post a comment click like and have a beautiful day peace