hey there and welcome back to heimlich's history now we've been going through unit two of the ap government curriculum and that means it's time to talk about the federal bureaucracy so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked bureaucrat style then let's get to it okay so in this video here's what we're trying to do explain how the bureaucracy carries out the responsibilities of the federal government so let's begin in the beginning what is the federal bureaucracy well in addition to holding the title for the word i most frequently misspell in this curriculum the bureaucracy consists of the millions of people who are employed to carry out the responsibilities of the federal government and which falls under the authority of the executive branch remember the executive branch of the government is there to enforce the laws passed by congress in order to enforce those laws it requires a metric butt load of people so in order to understand how the bureaucracy works let's begin with its basic structure first you've got the cabinet departments of which there are 15. for example you have the department of defense in the department of education and we'll talk a lot more about those in the next video but for now just know that all the folks that make up the president's cabinet are the heads of those departments now each of those departments are further subdivided into agencies which all work together to accomplish the goals of the department for example the mission of the department of the treasury is to quote maintain a strong economy and in order to get that done there are several agencies within that department that work to achieve that in for example you have the internal revenue service which is responsible for collecting taxes and deciding how and when that occurs and you also have the united states mint which coins and prints all our money okay then under the heading of bureaucracy we have independent regulatory commissions they're independent because they operate somewhat apart from the president's authority but they're still associated with the executive branch and these commissions do what their names suggest they are created for the specific purpose of regulating some aspect of society for example we have the federal communications commission which is responsible in addition to its many other responsibilities for making sure potty mouth language doesn't end up on our television broadcast thanks to the fcc i could not go on television and say [Laughter] and i definitely could not talk about how you know what i'm saying anyway the final kind of bureaucratic entity you should know about is the government corporation this is a kind of hybrid between a government agency and a private business when there are services that the government wants to offer to the public but the free market is the best way to do it then a government corporation is created or acquired so the next time you go outside to check the mail you can think about government corporations because one of the biggest of these is the u.s postal service okay so that's the basic structure of the bureaucracy now let me briefly tell you about what these entities do in order to carry out the will of the executive branch first these organizations write and enforce regulations for example if you've ever seen closed captions on a video or tv screen that's because in the mid 90s the fcc made it a rule that closed captions be included for those with disabilities there are a few exceptions to the rule but for the most part if you want to broadcast a show on tv and you don't include the closed captions the fcc is going to get you which brings us to the next thing these organizations do namely issue fines for non-compliance if you decide that the april 15th deadline for filing your taxes just doesn't appeal to you then maybe the irs is going to slap a fine on you quick fast and in a hurry or another example if businesses don't abide by the provisions of the clean air act and pollute the environment to their little hearts content well the environmental protection agency is about to hit them with a fine and that's what's known as compliance monitoring now the third thing these bureaucratic organizations do is interact with congress the department heads are often experts in their field and they'll go to congressional committees and testify on behalf of the dealings of that agency or their department now these bureaucratic agencies often work very closely with congressional committees and interest groups and when they do so this relationship is called an iron triangle these three entities work together and rely on one another's strength in order to make policy bureaucrats offer expertise to congressional committees with whom they are eager to cooperate since its congress who approves funding for their department committee members want to pay attention to interest groups because they often have policy experts who can inform them of the implications of certain policies and interest groups can provide funding for congressional races and if interest groups help these congress people get elected then they will likely provide funding for a bureaucratic agency that will address the interests of the interest group and on around the triangle we go now these days iron triangles aren't as prevalent as they have been in the past and that's partly because the number of competing interest groups have multiplied dramatically another reason is the prevalence of issue networks which have worked to weaken iron triangles so for example an iron triangle that formed around tobacco interest could be severely disrupted by an issue network which is a conglomeration of a bunch of folks who sometimes disagree about a lot of things but they come together around one specific issue and seek to effect change if one of these issue networks is alarmed that so many americans are using tobacco then they have influence to break the triangle okay we done got ourselves into the weeds of how the bureaucracy works and now we need to finish by talking about how the efficiency of the bureaucracy has changed over time and really this has to do with how people come to work in the bureaucracy back in the days of andrew jackson getting a job in the bureaucracy was the result of something called the spoils system you know that saying to the winner goes the spoils well that's the idea of the spoils system in jackson's day when the president won an election that meant that he had hundreds of bureaucratic jobs to fill and so he would give them to those who were not necessarily qualified for the jobs but rather those who supported his candidacy as you can imagine such a system can go sideways pretty quickly as it did in 1881 in the assassination of president james garfield just like every president before him garfield began his term by hearing from thousands of applicants for bureaucratic jobs people who had helped him get elected and there were way more people applying than there were jobs to give out so some people had to be told no well as it turns out he told one particular guy named charles guiteau no job for you and in response kateau found garfield at a train station and went ahead and shot it so that event created the occasion for reform in the way people got bureaucratic jobs and the word for that is civil service reform the result was the pendleton civil service act of 1883 which created a merit-based system for applicants seeking jobs in the bureaucracy now jobs went to the people who were actually qualified for them rather than people who just supported the candidate so you know good updates and it helped increase the effectiveness of the bureaucracy since competent people were now working these jobs now that reform continued into the 20th century in order to make the bureaucracy more professional and specialized and neutral under jimmy carter's administration congress passed the civil service reform act of 1978 which upheld the merit-based system already in place but also further expanded opportunities for women to work in the bureaucracy and increase the efficiency of many departments all right click right over here to grab view packet if you need help getting an a in your class and a five on your exam in may that was everything you need to know about unit 2 topic 12 of the ap government curriculum and i've got a lot more videos coming so if you're not already subscribed we'll go ahead and hop on that pony and click it and i'll see in the next one heimler out i don't know what that means hop on that pony and click it what is that