Bureaucracy

The Big Ideas Bureaucracy is inevitable. Bureaucrats do the work of the government, so in an important sense the government is whatever the bureaucrats do. Bureaucracy has conflicting responsibilities: “The bureaucracy is expected simultaneously to respond to the direction of partisan officials and to administer programs fairly and competently.” The president, Congress, and the courts have differing abilities to bend the bureaucracy to their wills, and bureaucrats are able to achieve power in their own right: autonomy within limits. Bureaucrats have their own views of how things should be: agency perspective [political culture of the agency]. Public administration is political administration: Agency politics is inevitable.

Forest Service Mission 16 USC § 551. Protection of national forests; rules and regulations: “The Secretary of Agriculture shall make provisions for the protection against destruction by fire and depredations upon the public forests and national forests which may have been set aside... and he may make such rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure the objects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction.”

Source: U.S. Government Manual:

Source: U.S. Government Manual

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Regions of the U.S. Forest Service

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Regions of the U.S. Forest Service

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

U.S.F.S Region One

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Lewis & Clark National Forest

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Resources Committees

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Interested Groups (Iron Triangle)

Interested Groups (Issue Network)

Who Controls the Bureaucracy? And How? The President Congress The Courts The Bureaucrats Themselves

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Source: Thomas C. Cronin & Michael A. Genovese: Paradoxes of the American Presidency (2004), p. 145

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups Congress

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups The Courts

President White House Office Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Chief Forester Regional Forester Forest Supervisor District Ranger RecreationTimberMinerals Congressional CommitteesInterest Groups

Presidential Preference and Position on the Electoral College You Vote First

Presidential Preference and Position on the Electoral College Politics 262 November 2004

Actual & (Expected) Values Pro-ECAnti-EC Pro Bush7 (2.67) 1 (5.33) 8 Pro Kerry0 (4.33) 13 (8.67) Chi-square = Probability that Presidential Preference and Position on Electoral College are unrelated is less than 0.001%.

Hypotheses?

Leaving the Electoral College alone is the “conservative” thing to do. The Electoral College is justified by its results, and it gave us President Bush.

Electoral College Biases

Small sates have a mathematical over- representation because they get at least three electoral votes regardless of how few people live there. States with low voter turnout get protected in terms of influence because the electoral college makes voter turnout irrelevant. States (especially large states) where either candidate might win become the key battlegrounds and gain disproportionate influence as both sides pour in massive resources.

Electoral College Biases The system of representation in the contingency procedure is a huge departure from the currently accepted principle of one-person-one vote. For what it's worth, a different set of states are disproportionately powerful in the nomination phase of the presidential campaign.

Source:

Map the Candidates

Fiscal v. Monetary Policy What? Who Governs? How Used? Relative Advantages of Each System Bias

“By 1960 our national debt stood at $284 billion.... Today the debt is $934 billion.... We can leave our children with an unrepayable massive debt and a shattered economy.” -- President Reagan 2/5/81

Today’ National Debt