Friday February 28, 2014• OBJ: SWBAT explain views the public has

about the Federal Beauracracy through text and visual images.

• Drill: What was Paul Light’s main argument? Do you agree with him? Explain

• Homework: Chapter 15 questions (originally assigned as chapter 13, change that on your sheet) You may have already done this, if you did good for you…. Due Tuesday March 4, 2014

Review Quiz….A block grant is… A categorical grant is….Define/explain unfunded mandates

Review Quiz #6A block grant is… – A grant from the federal government to the states that

provides money for a broad category of spending with little federal oversight

A categorical grant is….– A grant from the federal government to the states that

provides money for a specific program spending with significant federal oversight

Define/explain unfunded mandates – A federal requirement handed to the states that does not

come with money for its implementation

Bureaucratic Pathologies

Homework: Assignment 13

GSA gave out bogus ‘Jackass Award’ to justify

dinnersBy Emily Heil (4/13/2012)

• The General Services Administration, already smarting from a scandal over a lavish conference in Las Vegas, has a new reason to cringe: GSA employees made up bogus prizes, including a “Jackass Award,” in order to justify taxpayer-funded dinners, Roll Call is reporting.

• An employee told the agency’s inspector general that supervisors would invent reasons to honor employees at conferences so they could serve dinner. The “Jackass Award” was given at one conference to an employee “for doing something stupid,” the employee said, according to a transcript of the interview with the IG that Roll Call obtained.

• The fake awards follow on the heels of all kinds of embarrassing revelations about the GSA’s conferences. The Las Vegas confab that drew criticism featured a clown and a “mentalist,” and another GSA event — also held in Sin City — included a motivational speech by the man who inspired the football flick “Rudy.”

On Making Policy…

• Public policy making in European parliamentary systems has been likened to a prize fight, where two challengers face off and the winner gets to set policies.

• The American system, however, is more like a barroom brawl in which "anybody can join in, the combatants fight all comers and sometimes change sides, no referee is in charge, and the fights last not for a fixed number of rounds but indefinitely or until everybody drops from exhaustion.”

Bureaucratic Pathologies

• Pathology (for our purposes) – – Departure or deviation

from a normal condition;

• Bureaucratic pathologies are essentially “diseases” that bureaucratic agencies suffer from that make them less efficient than they might normally be.

Pathology #1Red Tape • "any official

routine or procedure marked by excessive complexity which results in delay or inaction.“

Existence of complex rules and procedures that must be followed to get something done.

Pathology #2• Conflict - when some agencies work at

cross-purposes with other agencies.

Pathology #3• Duplication - when multiple government agencies

seem to be doing the same thing • Congress rarely gives any one job to a single agency. For example, drug

trafficking is the task of the Customs Services, the FBI, the DEA, the Border Patrol, and the DoD. Although this spreading out of the responsibility often leads to contradictions among agencies and sometimes inhibits the responsiveness of government, it also keeps any one agency from becoming all powerful.

Pathology #4• Imperialism - tendency of

agencies to expand their responsibilities and areas of control without regard for the actual benefits that programs entail or costs they incur.

Pathology #5Waste• When an agency spends more than is necessary to buy some product or service.

Read the article and identify the Bureaucratic Pathologies

• Identify the pathology, define it, and summarize give examples of it.

Examine the cartoons:

What generalizations/caricatures/

stereotypes do the cartoonists attribute to

bureaucracies and bureaucrats?

Red Tape: Complex rules and procedures that must be followed in order to complete tasks

Conflict: Different bureaucratic agencies work at cross-purposes leading to “turf wars” between the two

agencies.

Duplication: More than one government agency completes the same task leading to turf wars between

the two agencies.

Imperialism: The growth of an agency without a demonstrable need

Waste: Spending more money than is necessary

Revolving Door: Former lobbyists come to work for bureaucratic agencies and vice versa.

Wrap Up

• So, how do you feel about bureaucracy, is it good is it bad….eh?